Bleeding Love
by LucretiaDecoy
Summary: After defeating the 4 Saint Beasts Hiei and Kurama were meant to return to the living world but what if Hiei refused? Yusuke is still out from his fight so Botan takes matters into her own hands. Hiei/Botan but not as you know it! COMPLETE
1. Closed Off

**A/N:** This is, as I more commonly do in fanfics, set during the anime series rather than at the end of it, as a sort of "what if this had happened instead" and then it retells a part of the series accordingly. In this case the story begins immediately after Yusuke defeated Suzaku of the Four Saint Beasts.

So… Lots of things to consider, but here are the key points: Kuwabara still has a crush on Botan (because he hasn't met Yukina yet), Hiei hasn't mastered or even tried to use the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, Shizuru and Yukina aren't in the story yet, Keiko doesn't have a clue about Yusuke's role as spirit detective, and (most importantly of all) the Four Saint Beasts mission was the first time Kurama and (especially) Hiei helped Yusuke with something, and they did it under duress and to avoid going to prison.

Also this fic is based on the song _Bleeding Love_ by Leona Lewis and the chapter titles will be lines from the song: because for some reason, when I heard the song, this story appeared in my brain.

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**Chapter 1: Closed Off**

"Botan!"

Botan groaned, the voice at her side sounding as though she was hearing it from under water. Her head was throbbing, there was a high-pitched whine in her ears and her eyes felt too heavy to open. Being in a human body was still a new experience for her, and it was a lot harder than she had imagined it would be. She could feel her head pulsing in beat with her heart at a point just above her left temple, and the skin around it felt warm.

"Botan, wake up!"

Botan groaned again, her head lolling back and forth. Someone was trying to shake her awake, she realised, but she felt too woozy to even attempt waking up.

"Botan, something very strange is happening! Please, you have to wake up!"

It was Keiko, Yusuke's girlfriend – well, Botan was not entirely sure that the two were boyfriend and girlfriend, because although they seemed very fond of each other, they were not exactly dating in the conventional sense.

"I think it's all over, Botan, please wake up!"

With a great effort, Botan finally managed to open her eyes, blinking a few times to focus them as she looked about her surroundings. She was still in Yusuke's school, and the ground around her was littered with bodies – the same bodies that had been blue-skinned and red-eyed and chasing Keiko the last time she had seen them.

"Oh no!" she said, sitting up and trying to ignore the grey haze that passed over her eyes as she did so. "Keiko, get out of here! Please, save yourself!"

"No Botan," Keiko said behind her. "It's okay now. They've stopped. They've all stopped. I think whatever was making them act that way has gone now."

Botan looked about the fallen teachers again before slowly sighing. She touched her fingertips to the throbbing warmth at one side of her head and then moved her hand around in front of her face to see blood staining her fingers.

"Oh dear," she muttered. "Oh! Yusuke!"

She stuffed one hand down the front of her coat and the other into her pockets, searching for her communicator. If the Makai insects had left their hosts that could only mean that Yusuke had succeeded in destroying the Makai Whistle, and it was vital that he returned to the living world immediately if his work in the city of ghosts and apparitions was done.

"Are you looking for this?" Keiko asked her.

Botan turned to Keiko at her words, gasping as she saw the shattered remains of her communicator resting on Keiko's upturned palms.

"Oh well, we should go to the old warehouse and wait there," she said, planting one foot on the ground and pushing herself up.

"Careful there!" Keiko said, reaching her hands out to her.

"Oh, don't worry about me, Keiko!" Botan said, trying to sound confident. "I'll be just right as rain! Let's go and wait for Yusuke."

"Wh-where is Yusuke?" Keiko asked as they started off down the hall together.

"Well actually, he's doing a little detective work," Botan began.

She could hardly tell Keiko the truth: that Yusuke was the new spirit detective, working for Lord Koenma of spirit world himself.

"Detective work?" Keiko asked. "I-I don't understand! What do you mean?"

"Well…" Botan began, trying her best to think of a good lie to tell Keiko.

She could not tell Keiko the truth, but as she was still recovering from a blow to the head, concentrating on fabricating a suitable lie was proving quite difficult. When Keiko pressed her again, Botan decided just to say the first thing that came to her head, silently hoping for the best.

"Yusuke has decided to become serious about his future," she said, putting on her most authoritative voice in the hope of conveying a sense of truth and dignity in her falsified words. "He applied to become an assistant to a famous private detective, and he was given the job on account of his… Fighting skills and firsthand knowledge of the local police station… Yes… Unfortunately, here he is, only on his second case, and it's a big one already: some terrible, unscrupulous drug traffickers have taken over this school to make their money selling drugs to middle school students! Some of the teachers here were conned into aiding the criminals, and the others were just too scared to fight back. The teachers argued over this, and became so upset about it all that they temporarily turned into murderous zombies. But now that Yusuke has found the crime boss, they are free to return to their normal lives!"

Botan sighed, wondering if she was feeling light-headed because of the length of her speech, the elaborateness of her lie or just from her injuries fighting off the teachers who had been chasing after Keiko.

"Right…" Keiko said slowly. "So where are we going now?"

"To meet up with Yusuke!" Botan cheerfully replied.

Botan was glad that Keiko asked no more questions after that, and together they headed to the old warehouse where the portal to the demon city was.

**

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**

Kuwabara opened his eyes, looking up at the troubled sky above him. Apparently he was still in that awful demon city. He must have blacked out after donating some of his own life energy to Yusuke to revive him, he decided. He turned his head from side to side to see if Yusuke was awake yet, but saw no sign of him. He frowned and slowly sat up, looking about himself curiously.

He was completely alone.

"H-Hello?" he called out.

Yusuke was gone without a trace, and so were those other two who had helped them defeat the Four Saint Beasts – not that he was not glad about that, since they had both been quite scary and weird. The redheaded one had been almost likeable apart from his love of flowers and his slightly-too-pretty face and hair, but the short, rude, vicious and sarcastic one had been completely detestable. It had been quite impressive watching both of them fight – the little one especially – but they were not the sort of characters Kuwabara wanted to spend any amount of time getting to know any better. Even Yusuke Urameshi was a little too rebellious, rude and ruthless for Kuwabara's liking, but he had nothing on those other two.

But no matter how cautious he was about the others, Kuwabara wished that even one of them would show his face – even that little treacherous one – since he was now completely alone in a demon city, with virtually no spirit energy left and a greatly depleted amount of life energy. He managed to stand up, but even that was an effort, and he was not stable on his feet. He felt quite vulnerable, but he could dismiss that concern if he could just get back to the human world. He was worried that if he did not move soon, he would be overcome by those freaky little hooded creatures that had swarmed him when he had first dropped down through the portal to the demon city. He could not even call for help, since Yusuke was the only one to have been carrying a communication device: a communicator that linked him to Botan, Kuwabara thought with a grin.

Thinking about Yusuke's blue-haired friend gave Kuwabara a slight boost of energy, and he started to walk around in a circle, looking about the rubble around him for any clue of how to get back out of Maze Castle and back to his own realm – and preferably a way that avoided meeting any more bloodthirsty monsters.

"Kuwabara."

Kuwabara yelped, recoiling on instinct at the sound of a voice behind him. He turned, feeling only slightly reassured when he saw a face that he recognised.

"Oh, hey, I wondered where you guys had got to," he said. "So what happened to Urameshi? Is he alive?"

"Yes, thanks to your selfless act, he will survive," Kurama replied. "He is still unconscious however, though that is only to be expected after what he has been through. I'm surprised to see you on your feet again already: though I'm glad that you are, it will make things much easier."

"Okay…" Kuwabara said slowly. "So where is Urameshi?"

"I took him back to the living world," Kurama replied. "I took him first because he is smaller than you and easier to carry, so I knew that I could make the journey quicker with just him on my back. But now that you are up, it looks like I won't need to carry you after all."

"I don't need to be carried, I'm a real man! I am perfectly capable of standing tall and walking away from this!"

"Glad to hear it. Follow me."

Kuwabara started after Kurama, glad to have someone with him for the return journey in case he did bump into any more monsters, but also confused as something appeared to be amiss.

"Hey what happened to that angry dwarf that was with you?" he asked as they walked. "Where did he get to? Or did he have to continue his journey to Mordor to destroy the one ring?"

Kuwabara snorted in amusement at his own joke, but Kurama did not even turn his head or acknowledge that he had spoken. Slowly, Kuwabara stopped laughing and started to become concerned. Although Kurama had not slowed his pace or spoken, something suddenly seemed agitated about him.

"Hey, Kurama?" Kuwabara asked. "Is everything okay?"

"Let's not worry about that now," Kurama replied, keeping his head forwards as he spoke.

"…When you say it like that, I just worry more…" Kuwabara muttered.

**

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**

"Oh no!" Botan gasped, hurrying down the steps of the old abandoned warehouse.

Yusuke was somehow back from the city of ghosts and apparitions, lying sprawled out on his back close to the breach in the barrier.

"Yusuke!" Keiko wailed.

Botan was first to Yusuke's side, and she quickly pressed one ear to his chest, hovering a hand over his mouth and nose to check that his heart was still beating and that he was still breathing: he was lying so still, she was concerned that one or both might not be happening as they ought to be.

"Oh good, he's alive!" she said, sitting back onto her heels.

As she caught Keiko's ashen face glaring at her from the foot of the steps Botan started to think that maybe she should not have spoken her relief out loud.

"…Not that I was worried that he might not be…" she added, before laughing nervously.

"Oh, Yusuke!" Keiko whimpered, stumbling across the room and falling to her knees at his side. "What happened to you?"

Keiko began touching shaking fingers to the various visible scrapes and bruises Yusuke had suffered, and Botan grew increasingly nervous as she watched.

"He was on a stake-out," she started to say. "I suppose something must have gone wrong, and he had to–"

Botan was cut off abruptly as the loose floor panel behind her flew open and two bodies leapt out of it. After her initial shock at the sudden noise and movement, Botan quickly found her smile again.

"Kuwabara!" she said brightly. "And Kurama!"

"Hey, pretty lady!" Kuwabara answered her, grinning down at her.

"Kuwabara?" Keiko said slowly, eying him over. "What are you doing here?"

"Um…" Kuwabara began. "I don't feel so good… I think I might need to put arm around someone for the walk home."

He grinned at Botan again and she got to her feet at his side.

"I'll help you walk if you're struggling," Kurama said, making Kuwabara's smile vanish. "Though you did manage to leave Maze Castle and to climb a tree and jump up to the portal here."

Kuwabara growled at Kurama, but Kurama ignored his response.

"Or if you're feeling well enough, perhaps you could help your friend take Yusuke home," Kurama suggested to him.

"Yeah, whatever," Kuwabara grumbled.

Kurama watched him move over to Yusuke's side before walking away from them. He looked back over his shoulder at Botan, jerking his head towards the opposite corner of the room as he caught her eye. She hesitated, a curious look dawning on her features, but as he jerked his head again she hurried after him.

"Is everything alright?" she asked as she joined him by the corner.

"I'm afraid not, no," he quietly replied. "I'm sorry Botan, I tried to give chase, but I couldn't leave Yusuke and Kuwabara alone, they were unconscious and prone to attack. I… I lost Hiei."

"You lost Hiei?" Botan repeated. "Oh dear, he died fighting the Four Saint Beasts? That's terrible! Though at least it should atone for the multiple crimes he committed."

"No, you don't understand," Kurama corrected her. "Hiei isn't dead. He just ran off."

"He just ran… Wait, what? What do you mean? How? And where?"

"Kuwabara passed out donating some of his life energy to Yusuke to revive him from death, and I had just finished telling Hiei that we would have to carry them back here with us. He seemed to be cooperating, but then suddenly he leapt up high and called back to me that he was leaving. I tried to convince him not to, that it was a bad idea, I tried reminding him that we are both still on parole from spirit world prison, but he wouldn't listen. He told me to tell Koenma "this city is one of the worst cities in demon world, but I'd rather be confined in the worst city in demon world than in any city in the human world". And then he just disappeared. I tried to follow him, but I saw no sign of him after that and I didn't want to wander too far from the others when they clearly needed to get back here for some rest. I'm sorry Botan, I did my best."

"Oh dear, that's not good. Lord Koenma certainly won't be happy. Hiei was meant to come back here and serve his sentence confined to this city. Running away from that is a breach of the agreement Lord Koenma made with him, and if Hiei doesn't come back soon, Lord Koenma will just send him straight back to prison. Oh Kurama, what was he thinking? Surely he knows that this will just land him in deeper trouble than before? And surely being confined to one human city is better than being confined to a small prison cell in spirit world? At least here he would have had the freedom to move about and to interact with you."

Botan lowered her head, her mind going into overdrive. She had never expected anything like this to happen: she had prepared herself for severe injuries and possibly deaths, but not one of spirit world's prisoners running away like this.

"Oh no, this is all my fault!" she gasped, her head snapping up again.

She groaned lightly as the injury by her temple throbbed again at her actions.

"You shouldn't blame yourself," Kurama assured her. "I feel that I am to blame for letting him go. I should have guessed that he might try something like this and taken precautions to prevent it. I'm willing to go back and look for him, but I need to first have this wound attended to and then of course I need permission from Lord Koenma to return to the city of ghosts and apparitions."

"Oh dear…" Botan muttered. "Why did he have to be such a rebel? He could have redeemed himself and cleared his name!"

"Hiei is not exactly a patient soul," Kurama replied.

Botan moaned in frustration, looking over at Yusuke again. Keiko had helped put him onto Kuwabara's back and Kuwabara was starting to stand up. Kurama moved over to join him, asking him if he would manage to carry Yusuke anywhere as he himself was still low on energy. Smiling at Botan, Kuwabara replied that he could manage anything, and he set off, carrying Yusuke up the steps to the door. Keiko hurried after him. Kurama moved to the base of the staircase before turning to look back at Botan.

"Aren't you coming with us?" he asked her.

"Um, not yet," she replied. "I was just going to call Lord Koenma and inform him of the current situation. He'll want to know that the Makai Whistle has been successfully destroyed so that he can set about fixing things here."

Kurama nodded his understanding before turning from her and continuing up the steps. Botan watched him go until he was through the door and out of sight before pulling the shattered remains of her communication mirror from one pocket. Of course she had no means of contacting Koenma without going back to spirit world directly, and she probably should have taken Yusuke's communicator from him: but she did not actually intend to talk to her boss just yet. She had a feeling that, despite Kurama's insistence otherwise, she would be blamed for what had happened with Hiei. Koenma had entrusted her to coordinate the mission, and that included making sure that both the convicts returned from the city of ghosts and apparitions, and so it was inevitable that Koenma would be mad at her and possibly even put her back onto ferrying souls full-time, and grant the position of assistant to the spirit detective to someone else. Also, she thought to herself, Hiei was a strong and intelligent fighter and when he had agreed to help in the mission to destroy the Makai Whistle, she had thought that he was changing his ways and would soon become a valuable ally to Yusuke just as Kuwabara and Kurama seemed to have.

Botan took a long look at the loose floor panel. Maybe it was just a mistake. Maybe Hiei had been hurt and he was too proud and stubborn to ask for help. Maybe he had gone ahead to get help for Yusuke and become lost. Maybe he had been ambushed, too weak after his fight to defend himself. Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding and poor Hiei would be judged wrongly and too harshly when he was innocent all along. The afterlife was all about forgiveness, after all.

Botan quickly and quietly scurried up the steps to the warehouse door, peeking out of it to check that the others were well on their way away from the place before quickly pushing it shut, plunging herself into darkness. She could barely make out the green glow around the edges of the loose floor panel and she carefully felt her way back down the steps towards it. She lifted up the loose panel and summoned her oar, before taking a deep breath and jumping down.

**

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**

"Hey, what's that noise?" Kuwabara asked, looking about himself.

"It sounds like a pager or a phone," Kurama replied.

"Oh yeah!" Kuwabara said. "It must be the communication mirror Yusuke got from the lovely Botan!"

Kuwabara crossed the room to Yusuke's bedside, reaching a hand under the bed-sheets to retrieve the device from his pocket.

"What are you doing?" Keiko yelped as she re-entered the room.

"It's not what it looks like!" Kuwabara cried, falling back onto his rear-end. "I was just getting this out of his pocket!" he added, holding up the communicator.

Keiko gave him a suspicious look but he ignored it, opening the communicator.

"Hey Botan, how's it going, baby?" he said, grinning down at the mirror. "Oh, hey, you're not Botan, you're an actual baby…"

Kuwabara screwed up his face as he found himself looking at a toddler in a tall blue hat with the monogram "Jr" on the brim, sat behind what looked like a large executive desk and sucking on an ornate pacifier.

"Ah, Kuwabara, I should thank you for helping Yusuke and the others today," the child said.

"Wh-what?" Kuwabara echoed, his face twisting further. "Hey kid, does your mommy know that you've got this thing? It's not a kid's toy you know, it's a very important communication device for grown-ups only."

"…Where's Botan?" the toddler asked.

"What's it to you?" Kuwabara asked. "Did you steal her communicator from her?"

"Give me that," Kurama said flatly, snatching the communicator out of his hand. "Koenma, this is Kurama."

"Ah, Kurama, I'm glad to see that you're well," Koenma replied.

"What are you guys doing with that thing?" Keiko asked Kuwabara. "Is it some sort of phone? I don't hear anyone talking back to you. Botan had something like that too, but hers got broken."

"I was about to ask why Botan wasn't answering my calls to her communication mirror, but I think I know why now," Koenma continued. "Congratulations on defeating the Four Saint Beasts and destroying the Makai Whistle. I saw that Kuwabara managed to revive Yusuke too, which is excellent. But Botan hasn't reported back to me yet, which I suppose is because she broke her communication mirror. But just for the record, where is she?"

Kurama looked up from the communicator and looked about the room.

"Oh no…" he muttered.

"Kurama?" Koenma prompted him. "Is Botan there with you."

"No, but I think I know where she might be…" Kurama replied. "She was behind us on the way back, I didn't notice that she hadn't made it back here with us. She stayed behind, to close the breach, I assume."

"To what?" Koenma echoed.

"She stayed behind by the breach in the barrier," Kurama replied. "I just assumed she was waiting for us to leave so that she could seal it over again."

"Botan lacks that ability," Koenma said flatly. "The breach was opened by two soldiers from the Spirit World Defence Force, and they set it to close automatically after a limited time."

"The breach was set to close? What if we had all still been in the demon city when that had happened?"

"Well you would have been stuck there until I could free up two of the SDF soldiers to open another breach. It was a chance I had to take. The soldiers of the SDF are very busy, I couldn't have them waiting around for you all to finish there and close up behind you. Why do you think I had Botan pressurising Yusuke to move quickly through the castle?"

"Well, I thought that was because we were trying to destroy the whistle before the Makai insects spread throughout the entire city and beyond, bringing about mass chaos and possibly the end of humanity as we know it."

Koenma thinned his eyes but Kurama kept his face flat.

"Okay, I understand," Koenma conceded. "It probably wasn't the best solution, but when I first found out that the insects were loose in living world, I knew I only had a limited amount of time to act, and this seemed like the best idea at the time. Anyway, it's not a problem, because you all got back through, didn't you?"

"No, we didn't," Kurama replied.

"What?" Koenma echoed. "But the breach is due to close over completely any second now! Who didn't make it through yet and why?"

"I'm going back there to check," Kurama answered. "I'll take this communicator with me, call me back in ten minutes, we'll talk then."

Kurama snapped the communication mirror shut.

"What's going on?" Kuwabara asked him. "Where's Botan?"

"I'm going to find out," Kurama replied. "Stay here and take care of Yusuke."

"Sure, but if Botan's in trouble, you need to let me know!"

Kurama ignored Kuwabara's last request, running from the house as fast as he could. His wounds had been wrapped up, but between the energy he had used up fighting Genbu and the energy he was using up healing himself, he was not as fast as he wanted to be as he made his way back to the old warehouse. He hoped that Botan had not been stupid enough to actually go through the breach and enter the city of ghosts and apparitions in pursuit of Hiei: as much as he did not want to see Hiei spend the rest of his days in a prison cell in spirit world, he certainly did not want spirit world to hold Hiei responsible for losing one of its ferry girls – the sentence for that would be far worse than the one he was already serving.

When he finally reached the old warehouse, Kurama shouldered his way through the door, pausing as his actions threw up clouds of dust, obscuring his view of the darkened room below. He quickly swatted his hands at the air to clear it as best he could, sighting a green glow by the back of the room. He hurried down the steps, keeping his eye on the green light, panic starting to rise within him when he saw that the light seemed to be fading and shrinking. He quickly threw himself towards it, reaching out one hand: but his knuckles crunched against solid ground and he landed hard on his chest, skidding slightly, the collision only aggravating his injuries.

Slowly Kurama pushed himself up onto all fours, pressing one hand around the area of floor where the breach had been, checking all corners and the centre in particular for any trace of a remaining gap through: but apparently the time limit on the breach had completely expired as the ground was solid and unyielding.

Kurama turned around and sat down, with his back rested against the wall, facing the door. He took out Yusuke's communicator and sat it down by his feet. When Koenma called, he would have no other choice but to tell him that one of his ferry girls and one of spirit world's most wanted criminals were both sealed in the city of ghosts and apparitions.

**

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**

As soon as she reached the ground, Botan quickly leapt off her oar and dematerialised it. She did not want to do anything that might draw unwanted attention in her direction. From the debriefing she had received on the city, it was not a huge place – it was barely a fifth the size of the city Yusuke lived in – but it was densely populated. Apparently it was largely inhabited by weaker demons who had moved there and devoted their lives to serving the Four Saint Beasts, who, in return, offered them protection from more powerful forces. She was hoping that she would not encounter any trouble and that Hiei would be easy to find, as, with the Four Saint Beasts gone, he was likely to be the most powerful demon in the city.

Botan began fumbling through the pockets of her jacket for any of her spirit detective items. Koenma had made so many already that he had given her a case to carry them all in, but she did not have that with her. She had taken a few of the smaller and more common items with her, which she soon recovered from her pockets, looking down at them pensively. She had the Mystic Whistle, the Psychic Spyglass, the Demon Compass, the Concentration Ring and three Mejiru Shiiru labels: none of which were going to be any help finding Hiei, she thought miserably. The Mystic Whistle was virtual suicide in an entire city full of demons, as using it would only mean that she would have every demon in the city after her. The Psychic Spyglass would only be of any use if she knew Hiei was hiding in a specific place, and then she could use it to find out where exactly, but otherwise it was useless to her too. The Demon Compass would probably break the minute she activated it, since she was surrounded by demon energy, from the many demons living in the city and even the air around her that was charged with demonic energy. The Concentration Ring might prove useful if she was attacked, as she could use it to produce a spirit gun that might even rival Yusuke's in strength, though that was a last resort as using it would leave her with no spirit energy and vulnerable: and of course the ring itself would not help her actually find Hiei. The Mejiru Shiiru stickers were also unnecessary. It was not like there was even anyone she could use them on or that could use one on her.

Botan paused, her eyes still on the three stickers in her hand. It was true, they were useless to her and her task, but the sight of them reminded her of something else that was useful. The Mejiru Shiiru labels had been created based on another type of tracking device in spirit world, one that was used on prisoners in case they ever escaped or when they were on parole to allow spirit world to keep track of their movements. Just like the Mejiru Shiiru stickers, the tracking device was bound to the person it was attached to by spirit energy, and no amount of force could remove it. Hiei, as a serving prisoner of spirit world, had such a device attached to one of his ankles. Kurama had never been given one on the basis that he had been pardoned of his crimes because he had not fought Yusuke and agreed to relinquish the Forlorn Hope, not to mention his altruistic intentions for using it had helped redeem him. But Hiei, who had fought against Yusuke and spirit world, killed ogres guarding the vault the treasures had been kept in and enslaved countless humans including Keiko, had been issued a tracking device before he had even regained consciousness from being blasted with Yusuke's spirit gun. Unfortunately, Botan did not have a radar to locate Hiei and his tracking device, but, she thought, she could call Koenma and fabricate a half-truth about having gone to demon world to help recover Hiei from the battle because he had been hurt and was stuck somewhere beneath the remains of the tower of Maze Castle, and have him help her locate Hiei without realising what had really happened.

And then Botan remembered that her communication mirror – or at least, what was left of her communication mirror – was no longer functional, and so calling Koenma was not an option. She stuffed her belongings back into her pockets and thought for a moment, determined as ever to find a solution. She never ran out of ideas in a dire situation, it was just that sometimes she needed to go through a few wild and improbable ones before she found a practical and applicable one. She started to walk as she thought, running through various possibilities in her mind until finally she reached one that seemed logical: Yusuke still had his communication mirror, she could just go back to the living world and take it from him and use it to call Koenma for the help she needed to find Hiei.

With a smile of delight and pride in her own ingenuity, Botan once more materialised her oar and jumped on it, soaring back up towards the breach in the barrier. She felt confident that, within the space of an hour, she would have found Hiei and brought him back to the living world without Koenma becoming suspicious of either of them. Her plan was flawless and nothing could possibly go wrong, she thought with a smile.

Though it did seem odd that she could no longer see the faint, blurred outline of the breach leading back to the living world.

**

* * *

**

The communicator at Kurama's feet began to bleep urgently and he picked it up, flipping it open to see Koenma once more looking out at him.

"Kurama," the young prince greeted him. "Care to tell me what's going on now?"

"There's been a slight hitch in our plans, I'm afraid," Kurama frankly replied. "After Yusuke defeated Suzaku and the tower of Maze Castle fell, I lost sight of Hiei. I tried to look for him but he had vanished. I had to help Yusuke and Kuwabara back to the living world because of their injuries, and I explained the situation to your ferry girl, Botan. We returned to Kuwabara's house, but when you called I realised that Botan was not with us. She stayed behind here at the warehouse after we left and I thought she was following us soon after, but I've just returned here and there is no sign of her. I think she might have gone through the breach to the city of ghosts and apparitions in search of Hiei."

"What?" Koenma echoed. "That's ridiculous! That would be a completely thoughtless thing to do! Botan is a very reliable ferry girl with good judgement and sound knowledge of spirit world protocol, it would take a scatter-brained, dithering fool to think that going through that breach was good idea for a spirit to… Right, I see your point. Botan went through the breach. I suppose I've got no other choice but to ask you to go after her. The breach will probably close on you, but I can have it reopened after a few days or so."

"Unfortunately it's a little too late for that," Kurama said. "The breach has already closed. It was almost completely closed when I got here, and I tried to reach through it or to look for any lasting traces of it nearby, but it was sealed over as well as if it had never been here to begin with."

"…So you're telling me that one of my ferry girls is sealed into the city of ghosts and apparitions in demon world?"

"I'm afraid so, yes."

"And one of spirit world's prisoners, who should not really have been let out for this and who was only released on the condition that he helped and returned here afterwards, is also sealed into the city?"

"Yes."

"Botan and Hiei are both trapped in the city of ghosts and apparitions?"

"Yes."

"They can't get back and we can't get through."

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

Koenma sighed, shaking his head.

"There's no way I can free up anyone to open a breach any sooner," he said. "Not to mention the trouble this will land me in. My father will be furious when he finds out that I've lost of convicted thief and murderer as well as one of our top ferry girls."

"There's not much else we can do," Kurama replied. "I could search for a random portal to demon world, but the demon city itself is sealed off from everything, including the remainder of demon world, by the barrier your elite forces have erected, so although I would be closer to the city, I would still not be able to get into the city itself, nor would I be able to get anyone out of the city."

"Oh!" Koenma moaned, thumping his fists onto his desk in frustration. "If only we knew a psychic who had the strength and power to break open barriers!"

"Such a talent is extremely rare," Kurama reminded him. "I've never known anyone with that ability myself."

"You're right," Koenma agreed. "Hiei will face a much tougher sentence for breaking the terms of his parole like this and Botan is in big trouble too for being such an idiot… And I suppose you did all that you could, and since you did get Yusuke and Kuwabara back to the living world I can't really do anything to you…"

Kurama laughed nervously, but the scheming look on Koenma's face did not lessen any.

"Though technically speaking, you and Hiei are partners in this mess…"

"I'm going to go back and check on Yusuke and Kuwabara," Kurama said hurriedly. "Maybe we can come up with a plan between the three of us."

Koenma started to tell him how ridiculous that was, but Kurama snapped the communicator shut, cutting him off. Kurama liked Hiei, but not so much that he was willing to sentence himself to an extended stint in spirit world prison for poor judgement and irrational recklessness by the impetuous fire demon.

**

* * *

**

Botan was starting to cry. They were tears of frustration, of desperation and of isolation. The breach in the barrier was gone. She did not know how it had happened, but it had definitely gone. Her passageway back to the living world had vanished. She had been closed off from everything outside of the city of ghosts and apparitions, including even the rest of demon world itself. Someone must have closed the breach behind her, and now she regretted not telling the others of her plans. Obviously they had closed it thinking that she was through already. Two soldiers of the SDF had opened the breach as an emergency operation and Botan knew that they would not return to open it again if recovering her was their only reason for doing so. Even Botan knew that the SDF would not waste time breaking open something they had worked so hard to create in the first place for the sake of one spirit. The original breach had only been sanctioned because the safety of the entire living world had been at stake, but now they would probably just leave it closed forever more, leaving Botan trapped and – probably conveniently for spirit world – Hiei closed off from demon world and the living world too.

Botan sank slightly, the effort of holding her oar so high in the air suddenly feeling too much to bear. She could hardly believe that she had passed through the breach only minutes earlier and now it was gone. A snap decision, her attempt to rescue Hiei and help him atone, and it had all been in vain: even if she did find Hiei now, what good would it do? Even if she managed to convince him to go back with her and even if he wanted to go back it could not happen, because they were both locked down into the confines of the city of ghosts and apparitions, forever closed off from the lives they had known in their own homes and forced to exist in a place that, truthfully, neither of them wanted to be in.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter:** Botan tries to acclimatise herself to the demon city as she accepts her fate of being made to live there and in spirit world Koenma tries to convince King Enma to relieve the SDF of their duties to recover Botan while Kurama and Kuwabara try to find a route to demon world. **Chapter 2: All in Vain**


	2. All In Vain

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Again, this is set early in the series, so none of the main characters (except Hiei, Kurama and Koenma) know about the many levels of demon world. Also the classification system for ranking demon power levels is not known by anyone (except Koenma) yet. And again, Kuwabara can't just use his uber-sword to slice open the barrier, because he can't do that yet.**

**Recap:** After defeating the Four Saint Beasts Hiei ran off and refused to return to the living world with Kurama et al. Botan went through the breach in the barrier to the city of ghosts and apparitions in search of him, but the breach (which was set on a timer) closed behind her, sealing her into the city.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 2: All in Vain**

Botan tried to look natural, tried to look confident without seeming overly so, as she walked along the street. After loitering on the fringes of the city of ghosts and apparitions debating what to do, the sight of strange critters in hooded robes swarming had driven her into the city. She reasoned that if she was going to be in just as much danger outside of the city, she might as well be inside the city. Also, being stuck in her human body, she was starting to realise that the things she had enjoyed about being allowed to take a human body were sometimes things to hate: she was getting tired, her legs and feet were hurting – those cute, narrow-fit, mid-length boots were starting to seem like a bad idea – she was getting hungry and she was extremely thirsty. She had passed a fountain in the middle of an almost pretty plaza as she had entered the city, but the liquid cascading out of it had not really looked like water. In fact, the liquid spouting out of the fountain had not even looked drinkable, but Botan preferred not to think about it too much.

On her way into the city, Botan had passed several demons, and surprisingly few of them had looked her way. It was reassuring that she was able to move around without being approached or attacked, but she also found it more than a little suspicious. None of the demons she had seen so far were human-like, and so her human appearance, her bright blue hair, her pure pink eyes, her deep scarlet coat, her bright scarlet skin-tight pants and her pure white boots made her quite distinctive, and yet still none of the demons she saw seemed to think that she was out of place walking amongst them. If she had not been in her human body she would have understood her invisibility – as a ferry girl she was only visible to the dead or those with heightened spiritual awareness – but she was in her human body, and she had a growing hunger, dry throat and still throbbing head injury to remind her of that.

The demons Botan had encountered were all either heading in the same direction that she was – though moving much faster than she was – or else they were standing around in huddled groups. It was as though something had happened to change the mentality of the whole city. Botan reasoned that news about the death of the Four Saint Beasts was circulating and that was the real cause of concern amongst the residents of the demon city. Nobody seemed panicked yet, but she worried that mass hysteria could not be far away when the populace discovered that the monsters they had been worshipping like gods had all perished and the city was still enclosed in an impenetrable barrier.

Botan wondered why the barrier was even still there. It had been erected to contain the Four Saint Beasts themselves, and now that they were dead, the barrier was unnecessary. The remaining residents of the city were weak and of no threat to anyone unless they decided to combine their forces and rebel against spirit world for ordering the execution of their leaders. Botan sighed. Somebody of influence in spirit world had obviously foreseen that exact scenario, and that was why the barrier was still in place. The city of ghosts and apparitions was in the heart of the sector of demon world that was owned by spirit world, and so any potential large-scale threats would always be contained and controlled. From what little Botan understood about demon world geography, spirit world owned about half of demon world, and the border between the half they owned and the half they did not was patrolled and maintained by the soldiers of the Spirit World Defence Forces, who fought off attempts by demons to reclaim any land and also incrementally pushed into the demon world owned territory to expand the spirit world owned territory, with a view to one day achieving complete ownership and ruling of demon world by spirit world. Botan supposed that, the day spirit world did finally take over the last of demon world, there would be no more need for a spirit detective, and the living world would never endure the sort of madness it just had with the Makai insects.

Botan had finally reached a part of the city were an open-stalled market was located. The demons behind the stalls were yelling and arguing with those passing through, and it looked like the panic she had been worried about was starting to happen. She could distinctly hear some demons claiming that it was "the end of life as we know it" and claiming that this gave them the right to free food and clothing, and others were arguing over the sensibility of raiding Maze Castle for its treasures: they seemed not to care about the ethics of stealing from their dead heroes, and rather they were more concerned with facing the many deadly traps the castle was filled with. Botan edged closer to the market, craning her neck to look around the stalls for one that sold edible food and clean drinking water. The noise and stench around her was overwhelming and starting to make her lose her appetite, but her need for fluids was undiminished, and she knew only too well that she could die of dehydration quickly if she did not address the problem (another drawback of being a human, she thought).

Suddenly the voices and violence faded into silence. Every demon in the market stopped what he or she was doing and lifted their heads, turning curiously in the direction of the unusual sound that had suddenly begun pulsing through the air around them. They all looked confused, and after a few seconds of silence they began muttering about klaxons in Maze Castle or a call to arms from the elders of the city. Although none of them could agree what the sound was, none of them seemed concerned about checking it out, and soon they had all returned to arguing amongst themselves about the prices at the market. By the time the market had returned to the chaos it had been in before the alarm had started sounding, Botan was already far from the stalls, running as fast as she could in the direction of the sound: maybe the demons did not know what it was, but she certainly did.

Of course the demons would not know what the sound was, Botan thought to herself as she ran. How could they know? It was, after all, the alarm given off by a spirit world prisoner tracking device that had been tampered with.

Apparently Hiei was trying to take the device off of himself and had just found out the hard way that it was impossible to remove by sheer force.

**

* * *

**

"What brings you here at this time, my son?" King Enma asked.

Koenma, who was knelt on the floor in front of his father's gargantuan throne, George cowering low at his side, bowed his head before answering.

"I need to make a request for the services of the SDF, father," he said. "It is a matter of dire importance."

"The SDF are all fully deployed along the border of our controlled portion of demon world," Enma replied. "I am not aware of any reason to call them back."

"It's about the recent mission in the city of ghosts and apparitions, father," Koenma explained. "Yusuke, my new spirit detective, made it back, as did Kuwabara and Kurama. Unfortunately, Hiei, one of our prisoners still serving a sentence for killing our guards and breaking into our vault and stealing the Shadow Sword and using it on a human, did not return. I let him out of prison on the condition that he aided Yusuke with the mission to defeat the Four Saint Beasts and destroy the Makai Whistle that was controlling the Makai insects in the living world, and he was supposed to return here afterwards. I had promised to reduce his sentence to restricting him to one city in the living world, but apparently he thought that was a worse punishment than being in a prison cell here in spirit world. The breach the SDF soldiers created in the barrier to the city of ghosts and apparitions has now closed, sealing Hiei in there. And unfortunately, Botan, one of our ferry girls, is sealed in there too."

"Why is one of our ferry girls in the city of ghosts and apparitions?"

"I don't know, Sir. I didn't give her the order to go there. I think she went to try to bring Hiei back, but the breach closed behind her and now she's sealed in there too."

"Hiei… Tell me a little more about him, remind me why he was sentenced so severely the first time around."

"Well Sir, apart from the crimes I already mentioned to you, Hiei was, according to our sources, a well-known criminal in demon world, who had, for some reason, lost a significant amount of his power, and so he had come to living world, where he was still more powerful than an average human, with the view to enslaving the human race with the power of his jagan eye and the Shadow Sword. He didn't even seem loyal to his own cohorts, as he turned the Shadow Sword on Kurama. The only reasons I hired him to help with this mission were that I was desperate to get help for Yusuke and that Kurama had insisted Hiei would always honour any agreement he entered into: and he did agree to help me in return for a reduced sentence."

Koenma bowed his head and quietly awaited his father's response, which took longer than he expected to finally come.

"Botan is the only one trapped in the city?" Enma asked.

"Botan and Hiei, Sir," Koenma replied.

"I don't see the problem."

Koenma's head whipped up.

"Wh-what?" he squeaked.

"I don't see the problem," Enma repeated. "You're basically telling me that a vicious prisoner with the ability to control others through the use of hypnosis has been sealed into a demon city that, without its leaders, is now of no consequence whatsoever. I don't see the problem. In fact, this is ideal. With a jagan eye, Hiei could have outwitted our guards and made his escape and wreaked havoc on the living world once again. At least now he is safely sealed away where he can't hurt anyone."

"Well…" Koenma said slowly. "Yes, that is good, but what about Botan? She's stuck in there with him! And she's in her human body, too!"

"If she's in her human body, she won't survive long there," Enma replied. "I suspect she'll starve to death or else be murdered. Let's hope her passing is swift and painless. She was a loyal and hard-working girl, I'm sure she'll be missed."

"Wh-what?!"

"One ferry girl is a small price to pay for ridding the living world and spirit world of a terrible demon criminal like Hiei."

"B-but… But Botan!"

"You may leave. I have no more to say on this matter, but I do have plenty of other more pressing concerns to attend to."

Koenma did not move, but George started to stand behind him.

"Come on Sir, we have to go," the ogre said to him.

"But Botan…" Koenma whispered.

George picked him up and Koenma made no move to protest. Together they left King Enma's office, and George carried his boss all the way back to his own office, where he placed him back into his chair.

"Ogre, what am I going to do?" Koenma asked. "I can't leave Botan there to just… This is terrible!"

"I don't know, Sir," George replied. "Maybe when Yusuke wakes up we can send him back there to rescue Botan."

"Nobody can go back there and nobody can leave there now that the breach has closed," Koenma said quietly. "Unless I can convince my father to send the SDF back there, Botan's gone for good…"

**

* * *

**

"I'm really tired," Kuwabara complained.

"Here, have the rest of my sandwich," Kurama offered him. "I'm not hungry for it anyway."

"Wow, really?" Kuwabara said, grinning and visibly perking up. "The best way to motivate me is definitely with food!"

Kurama said nothing, instead pushing the uneaten half of his sandwich into Kuwabara's eagerly awaiting hands.

"Just let me know if you sense anything," Kurama reminded him. "There should be a portal to demon world around here somewhere, and this is very close to the outskirts of the city of ghosts and apparitions, so if the portal is still open I can hopefully get through and somehow find a way into the city."

"Hey," Kuwabara said through a mouthful of food. "Don't you think that if there was a way in or out of the city, somebody else would have found it by now?"

"We can't give up hope," Kurama replied. "I promised Koenma that I would complete the mission to defeat the Four Saint Beasts and destroy the Makai Whistle without incident, and I consider this mishap to be at least partly my fault. I should have known better than to trust Hiei and I should have taken measures to stop him before he ran off. We entered this mission as a team, we will complete it as one too."

"An agreement between men!" Kuwabara said, spitting breadcrumbs into Kurama's hair. "Why didn't you say so sooner? The best way to motivate me is with an agreement of honour!"

"Right…" Kurama muttered, shaking his head and flicking the soggy crumbs from his hair.

"Hey, I think I feel something over this way."

Kuwabara pointed to his right and they both turned and started in that direction.

"I'm hoping that the barrier between the city and the rest of demon world only stops demons from passing through," Kurama explained as they walked. "I know that the barrier between the city of ghosts and apparitions and the living world is completely impassable, but with any luck, the barrier between the city and the rest of demon world will only have been made with demons in mind. In that case, I may be able to pass through it in this body, and Botan should definitely be able to pass through. We may just have to forget about Hiei, but we must recover Botan."

"Botan!" Kuwabara cried. "We can't fail to rescue Botan! I'm coming to demon world with you!"

"That wouldn't be wise, Kuwabara," Kurama warned him. "For many reasons. It's imperative that at least one of us waits on this side of the portal, in case it starts to close. Portals between the living realm and the demon realm are unstable at best. If we both got trapped in demon world and were still unable to reach Botan, we would only have created another problem for Yusuke to overcome when he awakens."

"But I have to be there for my lovely Botan!" Kuwabara argued. "The best way to motivate me is with love, and my love for Botan is so strong."

Kurama gave Kuwabara a withering look.

"Interesting," he sighed. "And how long have you actually known Botan?"

"I dunno," Kuwabara replied with a shrug. "I spoke to her a few times like about six months ago when I was fighting for a place to be Genkai's apprentice and then I saw her again today when she came to tell us about the Makai insects and she showed us the passageway to the demon city. Oh, and she called Yusuke on that little communicator device a few times when we were in Maze Castle and I saw her then too."

"And seeing her a face a few times has been enough for you to consider yourself in love with her?"

"You don't understand, Kurama."

"No, I don't."

"That's just the power of love!"

"Yes, well, whatever gets you through the day…"

Kurama walked on, trying to ignore the fact that Kuwabara had just – from nowhere – produced a bandana with "warrior of love" written on it and was tying it around his head. They were trekking through a boggy wasteland on the edge of a building site for a new industrial park, and Kurama had warned Kuwabara before they left what the conditions there would be like. Kurama had changed into a faded and frayed pair of old jeans and waterproof ankle-boots, but Kuwabara was still wearing his school uniform – which was not only impractical in the current conditions but also quite ludicrous, since his school had been closed for a week following the damage the teachers had caused during their rampage whilst under the control of the Makai insects.

Kurama tried to concentrate on the idea that Kuwabara had fought bravely and against Byakko and even shown some signs of ingenuity during the battle, and perhaps his current odd behaviour was just the result of him still being weakened from his injuries and the mass amount of spirit energy he had expended fighting.

"This is it," Kurama said, stopping suddenly.

He was so close to the portal that he could actually see the liquefying effect it was having on the air around it and the ends of his hair were lifting slightly from the static of the demon energy leaking through the opening.

"You must wait here, Kuwabara," he said. "If I am gone longer than ten minutes, or if you sense that the energy from this gateway is diminishing, you must call Koenma and tell him that I am in demon world and I might not get back."

Kuwabara slowly accepted Yusuke's communication mirror, which Kurama was holding out towards him.

"How does this thing work?" he asked.

"I have no idea," Kurama confessed. "But I'm sure that you'll figure it out."

Kuwabara slowly turned the object over in his hands, but Kurama turned from him and leapt at the portal before he could ask any more questions.

"Hey, wait!" Kuwabara cried. "What about–"

Kurama did not hear the rest of Kuwabara's question as he slid out of the living realm and, mere seconds later, was looking out across a blood red sky troubled by grey clouds and permanent lightning storms. He braced himself as he saw that he was falling, but luckily the drop was not too great and he managed to land on his feet without suffering any strain or injury. As soon as his feet hit the ground he took off at a sprint towards the raised outline of the city of ghosts and apparitions, glad to see that it was not too far from where he had landed.

Kurama was not especially hopeful that he would manage to find a way into the city – building barriers was one area where the spirits of spirit world were far superior in skill, power and knowledge to the demons of demon world – but he was hopeful that Botan would be able to exit the city into demon world, and from there he could take her back to the living world. He was disappointed that Hiei had let them all down, but being stuck in a city that would quickly fall into ruin and poverty without its leaders was going to be his punishment for his treachery.

Once he had reached the edge of the barrier Kurama slowed to a halt, first reaching out a hand to test whether or not his human body would be allowed passage. He pushed his fingertips against the glowing red wall, wincing as the energy crackled around his skin and burned him mercilessly. He withdrew his hand again, looking down at the scorch-marks he had been left with. They were not severe, but they warned him that if he tried to push himself through the barrier, he would be burnt to a crisp. He dropped to his knees and, ignoring the pain it caused him in his burnt fingers, he began digging at the ground. It was probably a desperate tactic, but there was a small possibility that digging an underground tunnel might bypass the reach of the barrier. He already knew that the barrier surrounded not only the circumference of the city but also acted as a canopy over the top of the city, so an aerial approach would not work, but it was possible that the barrier was not all-enclosing, perhaps it had not been built to cover the city from underneath.

After more then two minutes of frantic digging, Kurama stopped, leaning back to inspect the contents of the hole he had created. The glow of the barrier passed straight down into the hole before curving away from him and spreading out underground again: apparently the barrier around the city was all-enclosing, including sealing off the ground level of the city from anything below it. Kurama rose to his feet again, looking down at his burnt fingers. Digging in the grainy ground had made the already blistered skin peel from his fingertips, but he merely balled his hand into a fist to hide the damage and ran on, staying close to the barrier perimeter as he went.

Entering the city was not an option, but he could see through the barrier at what lay within the city, and he was hoping that he might manage to sight Botan or Hiei if he ran all the way around the city. Unfortunately the barrier had been placed quite far beyond the limits of the actual city – it had not looked that way on the images spirit world had shown him of the area, but the city was enormous, and the distance between the outermost buildings and the barrier wall was considerable when viewed close up. Kurama kept running regardless, passing one complete side of the city and beyond the back of Maze Castle before arcing around to come back down the other side of the city. Down the second side, the city was still a long way from the barrier wall, but there were fields of crops of some kind, and up ahead of himself Kurama could see workers tending to the plants.

Kurama skidded to a halt as he found a young female dog demon knelt very close to the barrier wall. She was looking back over her shoulder and shouting back to a large lizard demon behind her, but Kurama could not hear anything she was saying: apparently the barrier did not allow the passage of sound, which was more than a little frustrating. He waited patiently until the girl had finished talking and she turned back to face him. He began waving his hands at her, but she seemed not to notice him. Kurama moved closer still, standing so close to the barrier that, if it had not been there, he could have reached out and touched her. He waved his arms desperately in front of her face, but still she did not seem to see him.

He sighed, looking down at his burnt hand again. Not wanting to lose his fingers entirely, he pushed his other hand against the barrier, willing himself to hold it there as long as he could stand. The barrier crackled and hissed and flashed right in front of the dog demon's face, but still she did not so much as flinch. Kurama was eventually forced to retract his hand, shaking it off and biting back a groan of pain. Another worker approached the girl in front of him and they began talking to each other. Kurama could not hear their words, but from watching them one thing was clear to him: they could see each other well enough, and so they were not blind. Apparently the barrier was soundproof in both directions but acted like a one-way mirror in terms of visibility: people outside the barrier could look in, but people inside of it could not see out.

In conclusion, Kurama thought miserably, rescuing Botan from demon world was not an option.

With a small sigh Kurama took off again, running back around the city, checking inwards as he went. He reached the portal back to living world without having seen any trace of either Botan or Hiei, and so he leapt back through, landing back in living world to find Kuwabara trying to form his Spirit Sword.

"Oh, that makes me feel dizzy…" he groaned, the glow fading from his hand.

Kurama watched Kuwabara stagger about before eventually landing on his rear-end with a squelch, spraying mud all around him and dirtying his school uniform almost beyond recognition.

"Kuwabara," Kurama said.

"Oh…" Kuwabara responded, turning to look at him. "Hey, Kurama."

"I tried to get into the city and I tried to look for Botan," Kurama replied.

"Botan!" Kuwabara said with a grin, leaping to his feet.

He groaned and staggered about a bit more, grabbing a hand at his forehead.

"Why were you using your spirit sword?" Kurama asked. "You're still weak and injured, you should be resting!"

"The warrior of love never rests when his love is in trouble!" Kuwabara replied, striking an over-dramatic pose.

"Right…" Kurama sighed.

"So, did you find a way in?" Kuwabara asked him.

"Unfortunately no," Kurama replied, holding out his burned hands. "I tried everything. There is no way in and I don't think there is any way out either. The barrier is soundproof and those inside it cannot see out. There is not even a small window where we could pass through a communication device to Botan. I'm afraid our attempts here were all in vain: Botan and Hiei are sealed in there unless spirit world can create another breach in the barrier."

**

* * *

**

Botan had slowed to a walk, partly because she was out of breath and sweating from her sprint out of the city, partly because she was on her way up a steep slope that was too physically demanding to be taken at any speed and partly because the screeching pulse of the tamper alarm on Hiei's tracking device was so loud it was starting to make her feel physically weak. Hiei was still not within her sights, and she could only imagine how much he must be suffering from the sound with his heightened demon senses. It was probably positively crippling for him: she imagined he was probably curled up into the foetal position somewhere, literally crying for mercy. And that thought made her feel a little better. It was, after all, no more than he deserved for running off like he had and defying spirit world. Koenma had been very kind to give him a second chance, to allow him the opportunity to clear his name, and abusing it as he had done had proved that Hiei was evil through and through and he did not deserve any sympathy.

Botan grabbed at a tree root and pulled herself up over the ridge she had been climbing, gasping quietly as she finally found Hiei. After expecting to find him curled over and begging for mercy from the terrible scream of the alarm, what she actually did see ahead of her was so shocking she could not move for several seconds. Hiei was not cowering down, he was not crying for help and he did not even look bothered by the sound emanating from his right ankle. He was sitting up straight, his back rested against a tree trunk, his right boot discarded at his side and the right leg of his pants pushed up over his knee, fully exposing the tracking device wound around his ankle. His left hand was gripping his right foot, holding it in place against the ground, his right hand was holding his sword and he had stuffed some of his scarf into his mouth. He was sweating and shaking all over, but not from the intensity of the sound of the alarm deafening his ears, rather from the quite extensive injuries he had caused himself.

Botan had collected souls from people who had died some horrific, bloody deaths, but the sight in front of her now was arguably one of the most bloody she had ever seen. Hiei – apparently under the delusion that he could cut himself free of the tracking device – had sliced a gash into his shin above the tracking device that went to the bone, and he seemed to be trying to continue the cut around the outside of his leg. The tracking device was almost obscured in blood, to the point that Botan was amazed that it was actually still functional. Hiei was trying to drive the tip of his sword back into his wound, but he was shaking so badly he could not aim it properly, and blood had run down the length of the blade to the handle, making his already tenuous grip on his weapon even less certain.

It was actually quite a pitiful sight to behold.

Steeling herself against the unending scream of the tamper alarm, Botan marched over to where Hiei was sat. Obviously he had not been able to hear her approach because she saw him do a distinct double-take as she got close to him. He glared at her, his eyes still just as menacing even though he was shaking and sweating and clearly in no state to get up and fight off any genuine threat. He spat out his scarf and sneered at her as best he could.

"I don't have any money!" he yelled over the alarm, his words barely audible. "And even if I did, I'd spend it on a better looking whore than you! Now get out of here and leave me alone!"

Botan hesitated. She had almost forgotten that Hiei was a nasty little ingrate, but unfortunately he was the reason she was in the situation that she was, and he was also her best hope of escape. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself before carefully kneeling down beside him – though she consciously made sure to place herself beyond his reach just to be safe.

"Hiei!" she yelled. "You have to stop what you're doing! You can't remove the tracking device!"

He ignored her at first, managing to push the tip of his blade into the gouge he had already created in his leg. He pulled the blade around, slicing it into the side of his leg, fresh blood spilling from the ever widening wound.

"Hiei, stop!" Botan yelled.

Hiei paused, holding his sword in place, and slowly lifted his eyes to Botan again.

"How do you know my name?" he demanded.

"Don't you remember?" she asked him. "It's me, Botan!"

He slowly ran his eyes downwards over her before trailing them up again. He stopped at her chest, staring there for far longer than seemed necessary before meeting her eyes once more.

"No," he said.

Botan sighed patiently. She supposed that she was probably more familiar with Hiei than he was with her: they had only actually interacted on the day Hiei had kidnapped Keiko and Yusuke had hunted him down and fought him. The only conversation they had shared before then was when Hiei had spoken to her telepathically to tell her that he had taken Keiko and would only return her if Yusuke relinquished the two Artefacts of Darkness that he had already recovered from Gouki and Kurama – and Botan was not really sure that Hiei using her mind as a means to communicate his threats to the spirit detective actually counted as conversation. After that, they had seen each other during Yusuke's confrontation with Hiei, where Botan had tried to stop Keiko's transformation into a demon as she waited for Yusuke to defeat Hiei, and the last time Botan had seen Hiei had been when she had, with Yusuke's assistance, dragged his unconscious body onto her oar and taken him back to spirit world, where the prison guards had swiftly removed him from her oar, attached the tracking device to him and deposited him into a maximum security cell – during all of which Hiei had remained unconscious.

"Oh please stop!" Botan begged as Hiei bit into his scarf again and dragged the length of his blade across the side of his leg. "You can't cut the device loose unless you cut your whole leg off!"

Red eyes glowered at her almost accusingly as he brought his bloody weapon around in front of himself again.

"I thought I told you to get out of here and leave me alone!" he snarled, spitting out his scarf again.

"I'm trying to help you!" she shot back.

"I don't need help from anyone, least of all from a pathetic creature like you!" he snapped. "Get out of here or it won't just be my blood that's pooling at my feet!"

"How dare you? I'm trying to help you! I'm only in this mess because of you! The least you could do is be nice to me!"

"I don't know who the hell you are, but the sound of your voice is really starting to piss me off!"

"I'm just trying to help you! I can make that noise stop, you know!"

Hiei froze, his face slowly changing. Botan was sure she saw a flash of fangs before he launched himself at her. She was not nearly quick enough to evade him, and he collided with her, throwing her down onto her back. Her head hit the ground quite hard, momentarily blurring her vision as the blow aggravated the barely scabbed over injury she had sustained at the side of her head earlier that same day. By the time her eyes had focussed again, Hiei was on top of her and his sword was hovering above her throat. His hand was still shaking, making his threat all the more worrying, as he seemed likely to end up slicing into her whether he intended to or not.

"Do you understand now how easily I could kill you?" he growled at her. "Leave me alone, or die!"

Botan did not dare answer him, mainly because she was too afraid that any movement she made might bring her against his unsteady blade. Apparently her lack of response pleased Hiei because he smirked and let out a "hn" before moving off of her. He got to his feet and Botan distinctly saw him wince and shift his weight onto his left leg: apparently the wound he had given himself was causing him more pain than he was willing to admit to. And unfortunately, the alarm was still blaring and now, as she cautiously sat up, Botan could see that she had Hiei's blood on her left leg and shoulder, where it had dripped from his wound and sword respectively.

She sighed, inwardly wondering what had possessed her to go after him in the first place. She vowed there and then that if she ever escaped the city of ghosts and apparitions she would personally appeal to King Enma himself to have Hiei sentenced most severely for his crimes. She could still remember that, during his fight against Hiei for the Artefacts of Darkness, Yusuke had said that Hiei's wicked ways had made him beyond redemption. At the time, Botan had thought that it sounded a little severe – even though she was close to death herself at that point in her bid to save Keiko from Hiei's vicious assault – and she had optimistically believe that Hiei might change his ways after some time in prison. Kurama had proved to be an honourable and worthy ally after all, and so it had not seemed beyond reason that Hiei might also redeem himself and atone for his crimes.

Botan scowled at Hiei angrily. She hated him, she decided. He was a heartless menace, and he deserved to be in pain. She hoped that what he had done to his leg really, really hurt. She hoped that the most terrible monster from the city found him lame and ate him alive.

Hiei suddenly let out a noise that was somewhere between a curse and a whimper before falling awkwardly to one side, landing on his injured leg. Botan froze as his face changed suddenly. Clearly landing on his wounded leg had been quite painful and he was fighting to contain a cry of agony. He started shaking worse than before and the sweat began to drip from the tip of his nose. The sensible part of Botan told her to get up, walk away and leave him to suffer: this was probably just karma, after all. But the sight of him reduced to something so pitiful and helpless made Botan soften, and despite knowing that she ought to have walked away, she instead crawled towards him, reaching her hands out towards his bloody leg.

"Get away from me!" he roared, bringing his sword around to point it at her as she neared him.

"I'm going to help you," she told him firmly.

"You had better concentrate on helping yourself!" he snapped back.

Botan screamed and barely managed to fall back out of range as Hiei lurched forwards and swiped his sword through the air at the point where her head had been only moments earlier. She hurriedly scrambled back from him before getting to her feet as he once more managed to stand. She paused long enough to see his intentions before jumping up and summoning her oar, lifting herself high enough into the air that Hiei could not reach her before stopping to hover above him. She leaned forwards and looked down at him, tensing as she saw that his eyes were actually glowing, his pupils shrunk to the size of pinheads as he glared at the object keeping her afloat.

"You're from spirit world!" he spat out at her, his voice barely audible over the alarm. "This alarm brought you here, you've come to take me back to prison!"

"That's not true!" Botan yelled back at him. "Well, maybe it is slightly true, but I didn't come here on orders, it was my own decision!"

Hiei's face softened fractionally, and Botan relaxed her shoulders. Perhaps he was finally about to see sense, she decided, and that was definitely a good thing. If they could work together, she was confident that they could find a way out of the city. And even if they did not manage to find a way out, she still needed to find a way to cooperate with Hiei, at least initially, because, unfortunately for Botan, survival in a demon city had not formed part of the syllabus of ferry girl training.

"You maybe know my name, but clearly you don't know anything else about me," Hiei said, smirking up at her.

"…No, I don't suppose that I do, really…" Botan agreed.

"I'm not big on trust," he replied.

Botan screamed and dropped down to one side as Hiei flung his sword at her. By luck, the blood on his hand and on the hilt made his grip far less certain than it ought to have been and his aim was affected, allowing her to evade harm: but her heart was racing and her head was spinning as she righted herself in the air again and realised how close he had actually come to hitting her even with the odds against him.

"Get out of my sight," he warned her. "Go back to Koenma and tell him that the city of ghosts and apparitions might be rid of the Four Saint Beasts but it has a new leader now: me!"

Botan arched her eyebrows, silently wondering if Hiei had any idea how ridiculous his last words had sounded. He could barely walk, he was still bleeding profusely and he had a screaming prisoner tracking device on his leg: he did not look fit to lead anything.

"At least let me shut that thing off!" she shouted down to him.

He scowled at her before hobbling over to collect his sword.

"Put your sword away and I'll shut the alarm off," Botan offered.

Hiei tilted his head slightly to look at her from the corner of his eye, apparently thinking over her offer. After several seconds he swept aside his coat with one hand and slid his sword back into its sheath at his back. He then slowly turned around to face Botan fully, sitting down against another tree and looking up at her blankly. Taking this as an indication that he had decided to be civil, Botan began lowering her altitude, slowly bringing herself down towards him.

"You have to promise not to hurt me if I do this," she reminded him.

He grinned in a way that only made her feel worse.

"I won't hurt you while you do it," he said. "After that, I can't promise what I might do to you."

Botan gulped nervously.

"I suppose that's as good as it's ever going to get with you…" she grumbled, dropping off of her oar.

Her oar vanished behind her and she carefully knelt down in front of Hiei, who gave her an almost admonishing look, presumably because she had placed herself down a considerable distance from him. Keeping her eyes on his she slowly moved forwards into her hands. His face did not change and so she moved her eyes to the blaring device on his ankle, her lip curling involuntarily as she saw that the buttons she needed to press were layered thick with both congealing and fresh blood. She had thought that Hiei was intelligent, but apparently he was just stupid and had a very high tolerance for pain: truly the lowest type of cretin from demon world, she thought darkly.

With shaking fingers, Botan typed in the code to stop the alarm, her ears still ringing even after the noise finally stopped. She was so relieved by the silence that she momentarily forgot Hiei's earlier threat. As she lifted her eyes to his with a smile and saw the positively feral gleam in his eyes she suddenly remembered and yelped, scrambling back a little too late to avoid him. He pounced forwards, catching the front of her jacket in one fist and holding on tight. He brought his face closer to hers and started to laugh – but there was no humour in the sound.

"If you have the ability to stop that alarm, you must also be able to remove the device altogether," he said.

Botan hurriedly shook her head.

"N-No!" she said. "I can't! I've been taught how to switch off the alarm because I've helped track down escaped prisoners before, but I'm not authorised to remove those devices! I don't have enough spirit energy for that sort of task!"

"I think you're lying…" Hiei said in a low voice that was almost threatening her to dare defy him.

"I'm not lying, I promise!" Botan wailed. "The only other thing I can do for you is to heal that wound you've given yourself! There's nothing else I can do for you now!"

Hiei's eyes moved down to his leg and he appeared to consider what Botan had said. She started to relax slightly, hoping that finally he was about to be reasonable: but her hope quickly vanished again when his maniacal grin returned and his eyes lifted back to hers.

"You think I need you to heal this wound for me?" he asked.

"W-Well…"

Hiei forced out another mirthless laugh.

"Don't make me laugh!" he sneered. "This is nothing, a mere scratch."

Botan could not stop her cynicism from showing in her features at his words, but at seeing her reaction Hiei merely grinned wider than before.

"Hn, silly girl," he said, sounding almost pitying. "Do you see this?"

He reached up his free hand and swiped off his bandana, exposing his jagan eye to her.

"I had this surgically implanted," he told her. "The surgeon cut through my flesh with a scalpel, bore a hole into my skull with a manual drill and connected the optical nerve directly into my brain. I was awake, and I was not under any form of pain relief: I felt everything. The little cut in my leg is nothing to what I endured for this."

"…Okay…" Botan said quietly. "But if you change your mind–"

"Not going to happen," he growled. "I intend to continue cutting until I have this thing off."

"But Hiei, it won't come off unless you cut your leg off from the point above the device downwards," she pointed out.

"I'll find a way," he replied.

"Amputation is the only way."

"I'm growing tired of listening to your voice."

Botan smiled nervously and Hiei's face became stern. She sensed that he was probably now serious about killing her since she had – in his opinion – expired her usefulness. She wondered what would become of her spirit: would it return to spirit world, would a ferry girl come to collect it, or would she be doomed to spend eternity in the city of ghosts and apparitions? Or would she simply cease to exist?

Botan closed her eyes and tensed, silently hoping that Hiei at least had the decency to kill her quickly and painlessly: though she doubted that would be the case. He would probably torture her slowly until she was begging for the sweet release of death.

"Hn."

Botan frowned as she felt Hiei's hold on her jacket lessen. She dared to open her eyes again, seeing that he was watching her with a look of amusement once more.

"You're more use to me alive than dead," he said. "I'll let you live, but I will have to maim you to make sure that you don't go running back to spirit world."

"What?" Botan echoed, her eyes widening in alarm.

"I'm sure you understand," Hiei replied, slowly and purposefully sliding his still bloodstained sword from its sheath.

**

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**Next Chapter:** Botan learns that being in a human body for a long time can be demanding, Hiei has an embarrassing moment and Koenma asks Kurama to step into Botan's shoes… **Chapter 3 – You're Frozen**

**A/N: **Oops, sorry, slightly long chapter! Thanks for all the reviews, hope this story remains original (since it's about a pairing I just wrote a massively long fic about) and interesting!


	3. You're Frozen

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Just wanted to reiterate: this is a romance/drama fic (that's why it's in that category) and it will be Hiei X Botan (that's why they're listed as the main characters). Just wanted to point that out again. Just in case anyone hadn't noticed…**

**Recap:** Botan found Hiei trying to cut the prisoner tracking device from his leg and Kurama tried (and failed) to get to the city of ghosts and apparitions from demon world.

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**Chapter 3: You're Frozen**

"I'm so sorry, but it's late, I really must go home," Kurama said quietly.

"Oh, me too," Keiko agreed.

"Perhaps you should get some rest too, Kuwabara," Kurama suggested, turning to Kuwabara.

Kuwabara was still sat in his desk chair, which he had wheeled around to face his bed, where Yusuke was still sleeping off his exhaustion from his battle with Suzaku.

"The warrior of love never rests, Kurama!" Kuwabara said. "How can I even think about sleeping when my darling Botan is in dire trouble?"

Kurama started to roll his eyes but stopped and grinned nervously as he caught Keiko glaring at him.

"Well, goodnight everyone," he said, walking from the room.

"Wait!" Keiko cried, hurrying after him.

Kurama paused by the top of the stairs, turning to her with a patient smile.

"Who are you?" she asked him. "And-and how do you know Yusuke? Are you an apprentice detective at the agency too?"

"Something like that, yes," Kurama replied.

"What about Botan?" Keiko asked. "Where is she? What's happened to her?"

"Try not to worry about it," he assured her. "I think we should all get a good night's sleep and we can discuss this further tomorrow."

"I guess so," she reluctantly agreed. "I hope Botan will be okay. And by tomorrow, Yusuke should be alright too, right?"

Kurama tried to think of a suitable lie to deter Keiko from the truth: with his entire reserves of both spirit and life energy gone and only a meagre amount of Kuwabara's life energy keeping him stable, Yusuke was likely to be unconscious for at least another day.

"Well," he began, touching a hand to the back of his head self-consciously. "I suppose–"

Kurama was almost grateful when an almighty crash resounded from the direction of Kuwabara's bedroom and Keiko took off running towards it, saving him the effort of fabricating a lie. He slowly followed after her, entering Kuwabara's room to find both Kuwabara and his chair on the floor, the small castors still spinning at the base of the chair legs.

"Well," Kurama said with a small sigh. "It would appear that the "warrior of love" does rest eventually…"

Kuwabara was, inexplicably and suddenly, asleep, and even the fall to the floor from his chair had not awoken him.

"Let's leave them to it," Kurama suggested to Keiko.

She nodded and together they left the room, barely making it into the hall before a tall and enraged female pushed her way through them and stormed into Kuwabara's room.

"Kazuma, what the hell are you doing in here?" she yelled. "You're making enough noise to wake the dead!"

Kuwabara groaned, slowly waking up at her invasion.

"Hey, get out of my room, Shizuru!" he yelled back at her.

"Let's go," Keiko said flatly to Kurama.

**

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**

Botan moaned and whimpered and wriggled about as much as she possibly could.

"You're wasting your time and your energy, there's no escape," Hiei told her flatly.

Botan ignored him, continuing her efforts despite his words. Hiei sighed but continued poking his sword into the small fire he had built. It was getting very dark and the temperature was dropping, and Botan was slightly grateful for the fire, but she was mostly concerned about the position Hiei had left her in. Despite her best efforts not to, she had started to cry, though she thought it was mostly through sheer frustration. The situation she was in now was worse than being stuck alone in the city, she thought. In fact, she thought, the situation she was in now was worse than when she had found herself being hunted by the human-eating ghouls on the outskirts of the city.

Again, Botan wondered why she had bothered going after Hiei at all.

She stopped her struggles long enough to give him the sort of glare that she usually reserved for Koenma when he had given her a particularly onerous task to do without fully warning her of the dangers of completing it beforehand. Hiei either did not see her or did not care: she decided that it was probably the latter, since he was in his full demon form, and with the number of extra eyes he had sprouted, he had no excuse for not seeing anything.

At first, when he had been wielding his sword at her and he had taken off his scarf and coat she had feared the absolute worst from him. Seeing him transform into a green-skinned, many-eyed, pointy-eared monster had done little to ease her concerns, and at first she had actually been relieved when all he had done was to bind her up in rings of psychic energy. But as time passed and he did not so much as look at her, she began to grow bored, the bindings became uncomfortable and the other matters that had been concerning her before – primarily her thirst and growing hunger – were worsening with every minute that passed.

Botan kept glaring at Hiei, waiting for him to look her way. As soon as he did, she intended to give him a piece of her mind. She began formulating exactly what she would say in her head, but his actions were slowly drawing her attention from her objective. He had been holding his sword in the fire for so long, the blade was starting to glow. As she watched, he slowly lifted it out, holding it up in the air. He shook it slightly and the glow faded, but there was still a distinct heat haze around the tip of the blade as a reminder of how hot the metal was. Looking down the length of the sword, Botan saw that Hiei had even wrapped his scarf around the hilt to protect himself from burning his own hand, so presumably he had intended to heat the blade: but why?

It took Botan several seconds to realise that Hiei's eyes were finally looking her way, and when she did, she was so shocked to see him looking her way, she forgot all about the clever lecture she had been readying herself to issue to him.

"You might want to look away for this next part, ferry girl," he said.

Botan thinned her eyes and lips but said nothing and made no attempt to look away. He was probably trying to trick her, she decided, but clearly he had misjudged her. She was not stupid, after all.

"Hn, don't say I didn't warn you," he said, turning his attention back to his heated sword.

Botan stubbornly watched on as he lowered his hand and turned his sword slightly, lining the flat of the blade with his body. He slowly moved the tip towards the tracking device on his leg and Botan finally thought she understood what he was doing. She started to tell him that melting the tracking device would not work since it had been designed to withstand even demon fire – something he, as a fire demon, ought to already know – but her voice was drowned out by Hiei letting out an involuntary snarl of pain as the sword touched against one edge of the cut he had given himself above the tracking device. He pulled the blade away again, and for a sickening moment it clung on, a length of melted skin holding it against him until he pulled harder, tearing it loose.

"What are you doing?" Botan asked. "Didn't you hear me? You can't remove the device with heat!"

"I'm not trying to remove the device, you fool," he flatly replied. "I'm trying to stop the bleeding."

"Well you're hardly… Oh…"

Botan's eyebrows twisted and she tensed as Hiei began to once more move the flat of his sword towards the gash on his leg. Just before he reached his goal, she finally realised what was wrong with what she was witnessing: apparently he was trying to cauterise the laceration in his leg to stop the blood loss.

"Stop!" she demanded.

He jerked slightly and lifted his eyes to her, glaring at her threateningly.

"Do you mind?" he sneered. "Keep your shrill verbal ejaculations to yourself and stop interrupting me!"

"Stop being so stupid!" Botan snapped back. "What you're doing is gruesome and completely unnecessary! If you have the energy to take that form then you have enough energy to heal your wounds without resorting to such draconian methods!"

"I can't heal myself unless I go to sleep!" Hiei retorted angrily. "And if I go to sleep I can't keep you bound up, and if I can't keep you bound up you'll just escape back to spirit world!"

"I can't go back to spirit world!" Botan yelled. "I'm trapped here just the same as you are! The breach in the barrier has closed! Nobody can get out and nobody can get in! We're both stuck here!"

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I don't care if you believe it or not, it's the truth!"

"Why would spirit world seal you in here?"

"They don't know that I'm here!"

Hiei narrowed his eyes sceptically.

"Even if you are sealed in this city, the second I release you, you'll fly away on your broom and call for help," he said in a low voice.

"It's not a broom, it's an oar!" Botan cried indignantly. "I'm a ferry girl, not a witch! And I can't call for help because my communication mirror is broken! I'm completely stranded here!"

"That's ridiculous!"

"Yes it is! And it's all your fault! I only came here because of you! I came here to try to convince you to come back to the living world with me before Lord Koenma found out about your naughty little escapades here!"

"…"Naughty little escapades"…?"

Botan sighed heavily and hung her head in exasperation.

"Look, I can prove it to you," she said quietly. "I still have my broken communication mirror in my jacket."

Botan lifted her head back and pushed out her chest.

"Put your hand down my jacket, it's in there somewhere," she said.

She waited patiently for several seconds for Hiei to comply, and when he did not, she turned her head towards him, finding him staring at her with wide eyes and an open mouth, his eyebrows twisted up high on his forehead.

"Go on!" she insisted, leaning towards him. "Put your hand down there and have a good old feel about! I promise you'll find what you're looking for!"

"…You are either incredibly stupid or… Incredibly stupid," he eventually answered her. "Either you don't understand what you're asking of me – which would make you stupid – or you know exactly what you're trying to make me do – and that makes you stupid too."

"Well how about we both stop saying and doing stupid things?" Botan replied sarcastically. "How about you let me go, I will heal that wound for you, and then we can both go to sleep!"

"I'm not releasing you!"

Botan growled in frustration and turned her head from Hiei, sticking her nose up in the air. She was starting to get cramps from being stuck in the same position for so long. And she was hungry. And she was so, so thirsty. And the wound on the side of her head had dried over and was becoming itchy. Being a human certainly was complicated.

"Hiei…" she whimpered, turning back to him. "You have to let me go."

"I don't have to do anything," he muttered under his breath.

"But I need to go wee wee!"

Botan began squirming about again, though the energy bonds around her were tight enough and powerful enough that her movements were extremely restricted. Logically she knew that no amount of plain physical struggling against such bonds would do anything to loosen them or free herself, but as the demands of her human body became worse, logic was rapidly leaving her.

"You're a ferry girl," Hiei told her, as though he thought she might not already know. "You don't need anything."

"Yes I do!" Botan argued. "You don't understand! I was given a human body to allow me to better help Yusuke when he is investigating a case for spirit world. I have all the same needs as a human, and right now, I really, really need to go to the little girls' room!"

Botan glared at Hiei expectantly, and, still blinded by her anger and lost in a haze of her own self-pity, she did not immediately realise that something was different about him. As time passed and he still neither answered her nor looked away, sense began to slowly return to Botan, and she finally started to notice that Hiei had quite a strange expression on his face and that he appeared to be sweating.

"H-Hiei?" she said softly.

His face tensed slightly at the sound of her voice and then he put on a crooked smirk; though the strange look did not leave his eyes.

"Hn, I wondered why I could see you and touch you," he said. "I thought that was part of spirit world's game to lure me back to their prison, but now I understand: a ferry girl in a human body. Ha! That's quite ridiculous. I'm not sure if having a human body is an elevation in status for you or an enormous insult to you."

"I'd rather be a ferry girl in a human body than a fire demon in a green body covered in eyes!" Botan shot back. "You're the ridiculous one! How far down do those eyes go, anyway? Do you have eyes on your legs, too?"

She was vaguely aware that she being ludicrous and more than a little childish, but experiencing extreme hunger, thirst, exhaustion and a very desperate need to use a toilet all for the first time ever was severely marring Botan's ability to filter her thoughts before they manifested themselves into spoken words.

"Those eyes are very symmetrical," she continued. "Do you have one on each butt-cheek too?"

Botan saw Hiei's face was changing, and she knew, deep down, that she was pushing her luck: he was famously ill-tempered and quick to violence, and every word she spoke was clearly angering him further and further.

"Can you see out of them or are they just for decoration?" she asked. "Oh! I know! You have them for the same reason a peacock has those fake eyes on its tail-feathers: for scaring off enemies and attracting a mate!"

"Are you at all familiar with the saying "she's like a jackdaw among peacocks"?" Hiei asked her.

"Yes, of course," Botan replied, completely thrown by his question but determined not to let it show. "It means someone who is obviously out of place."

"Like you," he said. "You're like a jackdaw amongst peacocks. Small, noisy, insignificant, lacking the glorious magnificence and power of those around you and dull and ugly in comparison."

"That's not what that saying means!" she argued defiantly. "Now let me go!"

"I'm not letting you go."

"But I have to go to the toilet!"

"If I let you go – even just long enough to do that – you'll only go back to spirit world."

"I can't go back to spirit world! Weren't you listening to me earlier?"

"And I said I don't believe you! Obviously you weren't listening to me!"

Botan sighed and pouted, hanging her head in defeat. Her stomach made a horrible noise of hunger, one that she had only ever heard other people's stomachs do before. She had always laughed at the sound in the past, but as she felt the pain and desperation that came with it, she suddenly no longer found it funny and hated herself for having ever laughed at anyone else for the same thing.

"What was that?" Hiei asked.

Botan lifted her head again, finding that the look on his face suggested he was even more confused than she was.

"I'm hungry!" she complained. "And I'm tired and I'm bored and I need to go wee wee!"

"…You're actually hungry?"

Botan's face dropped.

"Do you ever listen to anything anyone ever says to you?" she snapped.

"So that's not just an artificial body they gave you," he continued. "It's a fully-functional human body?"

"Of course!" she replied. "Oh please let me go!"

Botan shut her eyes tightly and tried to focus on staying calm. She had managed to stay calm whilst escorting souls to spirit world from all sorts of horrors, from wars to natural disasters to terrorist attacks, and yet trying to sit still and quiet whilst her body demanded food, liquid, sleep and toilet facilities was proving impossible for her.

"It doesn't even make any sense!" she complained. "How can I still be thirsty and need to go to the toilet this badly? I think I got a broken body, it isn't handling liquids properly!"

Hiei grumbled out a curse and Botan felt the psychically charged bonds around her easing off and eventually disappearing altogether. She slowly opened her eyes, looking down to confirm that she was free before moving her arms. She turned her head to Hiei, finding that he had turned back into his more typical, humanlike form. He was watching the fire, but the distinct rigidity of his posture told her that he was still angry with her.

"Um…" she began, wriggling slightly where she sat. "So where is the nearest toilet?"

"This is demon world," Hiei replied, his eyes still on the fire. "Here you're homeless and impoverished. The toilet is wherever you damn well feel like."

"You mean…?"

Botan gulped audibly. Just when she had thought that being stuck in the city of ghosts and apparitions could not possibly get any worse, it just had. Being human truly was the worst possible fate, she decided. She slowly stood up, being mindful not to strain herself too much in case she had an accident. She looked about herself before eventually locating a bushy plant nearby that looked as though it would conceal her while she did what she needed to. She then turned around and saw Hiei watching her from the corner of his eye.

"How do I know that you won't come over there?" she yelled at him.

He twitched at the sound of her voice, his head turning slightly towards her and his mouth twisting into a sneer.

"Why would I?" he spat.

"Well you'd better not!" she warned him.

"Why would I?" he asked again.

Botan sighed in exasperation before scurrying off behind the bushes and quickly doing what was necessary to ease one of the many physical needs taking its toll on her body and mind. She inwardly cursed the lack of tissue paper and privacy but moved swiftly regardless, as she did not wish to get caught in such a prone position by any of the locals – or worse still, to have Hiei spying on her.

Once she was done she made her way back over to sit down by the fire, placing herself opposite Hiei, her first thought being that she was safer keeping the fire between them. But then she remembered that Hiei was a fire demon and she started to feel stupid.

"You're not very clever, are you, ferry girl?" Hiei asked her suddenly.

"Oh, and I suppose you are?" she retaliated sarcastically.

"It doesn't matter how many plants or walls or any other physical objects you put in my way," he calmly replied. "I have a jagan eye, I can see anything I damn well want to."

Botan gasped, glaring across the fire at him. He was apparently trying to make a bandage for his leg out of his own scarf, but he was mostly just getting blood everywhere and ripping the scarf into increasingly useless smaller pieces.

"Any sort of being, demon or otherwise, who spies on a girl when she's going to the toilet is sick," she frankly told him.

"I said I can see anything I want to," he replied, without looking at her. "I don't want to see you at all, in any position, so I didn't waste my powers checking on you. As long as you don't run away, I don't care what you do."

"I already told you: I can't run away," Botan stubbornly replied.

"And I already told you that I don't believe you."

Botan rolled her eyes and groaned. It was not even as though she could prove the truthfulness of her words to Hiei, since the barrier was complete and her communication mirror was broken, so she had no way of contacting Koenma to let him tell Hiei that they were both now stuck in the city of ghosts and apparitions, possibly forever. And thinking about being stuck where she was indefinitely, waiting for her human body to die somehow, made Botan depressed again. Her earlier search for food and water had proved fruitless, and so she decided to cater to the only other need that she possibly could: she decided to make herself as comfortable as possible and then go to sleep.

The fire was invitingly warm, and being near its heat and light made Botan feel safe enough to sleep – though she was unsure why, since few demons were scared off by fire. Facing the fire she lay down on one side, curling up and resting her head on one arm. She closed her eyes and felt that sinking feeling of rapidly falling asleep and she welcomed it. She vaguely heard Hiei standing up and moving about, but she ignored it. He had said that he did not want her to run away from him, so she assumed that he would not run away from her, and therefore she had nothing to worry about. With that thought she took a deep breath and snuggled down against the crook of her arm and allowed her body to relax at last.

Botan enjoyed barely three seconds of peace before she felt a hand grab her arm far too tightly and pull her up. She screamed out on instinct, moving in the direction she was being pulled to avoid suffering injury. She looked up to see Hiei standing over her, his eyes looking at something behind her back. Once he had her in a sitting position he released her arm and grabbed the collar of her jacket at the back of her neck, pulling back until she was almost choking. She started to yell at him for strangling her but her concern about being strangled soon changed into a fear of being sliced in half as he positioned the tip of his sword at the back of her neck and began pushing downwards.

"What are you doing?" she cried out. "You can't kill me! Don't you know what happens to demons who kill humans? And I'm not just a human, I'm a ferry girl too! You'll be sent to limbo for this! Is that what you want? 10,000 years of torturous pain and misery? Hiei!"

Botan went very still and very quiet as she felt the flat of Hiei's sword sliding down her spine. He had stabbed the sword down between her jacket and her shirt, but even though the material of her shirt she could feel that the blade was still uncomfortably warm from being held in the fire earlier. She tried to pull away from it, but as the tip of the sword slid out the bottom of her jacket and Hiei drove it down into the ground, she found herself stuck. He pushed down until the crossbar on the hilt of the sword was pressing against the collar of her jacket and one of her shoulders, leaving her effectively pinned to the spot of ground she was sat on.

"Hiei?" she whimpered, trying to lean forwards and jarring against her own coat.

"You're going to make yourself useful," Hiei muttered, moving over to sit down facing her. "Heal my leg."

Botan hesitated to respond, watching him carefully for any sign that he was mocking her somehow.

"…But I thought you didn't want that?" she said carefully when he did not so much as blink.

"Heal my leg and I'll think about feeding you," he replied.

Botan's face dropped.

"That's not funny, Hiei!" she said.

"I'm not trying to be funny," he flatly replied. "I despise jokes."

Botan looked down at the self-inflicted wound on Hiei's leg, her top lip curling involuntarily. It would be worth healing it just so that she did not have to look at it, she decided, and so she started to reach her hands out with the intention of doing as he had asked of her. She managed to move her hands out to the length of her arms before she became caught. She tried to jerk against the sword a few times in order to close the distance between her hands and Hiei's leg, but the blade was as immobile as ever.

"You'll have to come closer," she told Hiei. "I can't reach you."

"I'm not falling for that trick," he replied. "Just do it and shut-up."

Botan glared at him, wondering how stupid he was: or maybe how stupid he thought she was. With her arms fully stretched out, she was still some distance from him. Even stretching out her legs she could not reach him with her feet, and with his sword pinning her down, there was nothing she could do to close the gap any.

"You have to come closer," she insisted. "I simply can't reach you from-"

"I'm not moving any closer," Hiei interrupted her.

Botan took a deep breath to yell at him before realising something that made her smile.

"Fine then," she said. "I'll just have to move closer to you."

"Hn, I'd like to see you try," Hiei replied.

Botan shrugged before opening her jacket and pulling her arms from it, letting it fall down one side of the sword and allowing her to move away from the other. She could not tell if Hiei looked more confused or angry at her actions, but she mostly ignored the look on his face, instead moving onto all fours and crawling over to his leg. She held her hands over his wound and set to work healing it, though her eyes were studying the tracking device. It was true that she did not have the knowledge or the power to remove such a device, but she did know a few other things it was capable of. Like the Mejiru Shiiru labels, it could be used to indicate the health of the bearer, and it was designed to alert a central tracking system in spirit world if the wearer became mortally wounded. There was a way to bypass the trigger and make it seem as though the wearer was mortally wounded when they were not, and Botan was almost sure that she knew how to do it: but whether she would get the chance to carry out such a plan and whether officials in spirit world would care or even react to the news that Hiei was mortally wounded was another matter entirely.

By the time Botan had finished healing Hiei's wound she was exhausted. She was sweating and close to passing out, and there was still a purple line in his skin where the cut had been: though that was probably only to be expected, she thought, since it had been an unreasonably deep incision. She dragged the back of one hand across her forehead and sighed, lifting her eyes to Hiei.

"There we are!" she said as brightly as she could manage. "As good as new! Well, not quite as good as new, but almost as good as new. Certainly a lot better than it was or would have been if you'd kept melting it shut."

Botan waited for Hiei to say something – probably to insult her again – but to her surprise he sat unnaturally still and silent, staring at her with large eyes that almost made him look innocent.

"Hiei?" she said. "Are you alright?"

He grunted out a noise that sounded like a curse word before launching himself into the air and blasting past her at tremendous speed, the gust of displaced air almost enough to extinguish the fire. She turned her head but he was already out of sight. Looking about herself she saw his coat, the tattered and bloody remains of his scarf, his sword still embedded in the ground by her discarded jacket and the sheath of his sword by where he had been sitting.

"Oh well," she said to herself. "I guess his leg must be feeling better if he can still run that fast."

**

* * *

**

Hiei leapt off of an embankment, landing on one hip and sliding down awkwardly. He eventually stopped when his booted feet were plunged into the shallow edge of a river and they hit the rocky riverbed. He adjusted himself into a sitting position, but did not bother taking his feet out of the water. The water was cold and it was moving quite fast, and even through his boots he could feel the chill of it, but he welcomed the sensation.

Hiei sat on the bank of the river for several seconds, his mind blank and his feet gradually getting colder, until finally he decided that he needed to move. He then stood up, walked forwards until the water level had reached the tops of his knees before stopping again. He dropped to his knees and then sat back onto his ankles, submerging himself to his waist in the bitterly cold rapids. He stopped again, holding his position for several seconds before scooping up water in his hands and splashing it against his face and over his head repeatedly. It was arguably the coldest water Hiei had ever touched, as though it originated in the heights of the ice village itself. He hated the cold and he especially hated cold water, and the numbing effect of both the cold and speed of the water was doing little good to his still aching leg.

But the numbing effect of both the cold and speed of the water was doing exactly what it ought to be to ease his other problem, and so he persevered.

It was nothing to be ashamed of, he silently told himself. It had, after all, been a very long time since he had last been with a woman. In fact, he had not been with a woman in over a month when he had begun tracking Yatsude, which had led him to the living world, where he had met Kurama and begun his plans to steal the Artefacts of Darkness from spirit world, and that plan had taken a year to implement, following which he had spent six months in prison. So it had been more than one year and seven months. Which was a very depressing thought.

It was not that he was attracted to her, as such. She was a detestable ferry girl, after all, and in the body of a filthy human, no less. It was just that sometimes, healing magic had a tendency to feel quite nice when administered. It was the same trick enchantresses in demon world used to lure men in. Of course, being a ferry girl, the idiot who had just healed his leg probably had no idea that she had done a lot more than seal a cut.

It was just an unfortunate series of coincidences, Hiei thought to himself. She had taken off her jacket – which had surprised him, as it was a very clever thing to do to escape her predicament and very unlike a dim-witted servant of spirit world – and he had not been given enough time to recover from the shock at her display of intelligence to prepare himself for her coming at him in a very flimsy vest that was probably a little looser than she realised, affording him a rather detailed look down the front of it as she crawled towards him. Then she had started with the healing magic and his body had been filled with that warm and pleasant pulsing sensation of spirit energy working to heal wounds and stimulate blood flow – including stimulating blood flow in places it probably was never meant to.

It was definitely just circumstances. Thinking about her again, Hiei could hardly even remember what she looked like, so he knew that he was not really attracted to her. It was just his body reacting instinctively as anyone else in his circumstances would have.

Hiei shivered. The water was really, really cold.

**

* * *

**

Botan did not realise that she had been asleep until she was suddenly awakened by Hiei making an uncharacteristically noisy return to the fireside. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes sleepily, suppressing a yawn and trying to look alert as she watched him tug his sword out of the ground. He passed her to collect the sword's scabbard and it was then that she noticed that he was wet and she felt a blast of cold air off of him, both of which were unexpected from a fire demon.

"Hiei, are you alright?" she asked.

Honestly she did not actually care if he was alright or not, but the fact that he was wet was interesting at least, as it indicated water – Botan had been worried that there was none to be had in the city of ghosts and apparitions.

"Shut-up and sleep," he grumbled moodily.

"But Hiei…"

Botan crawled lazily around the fire to where Hiei had just sat himself down, ignoring the glare he gave her as she approached.

"How's your leg?" she asked.

His pants leg was still pushed up over his knee and so she reached a hand out to touch the purple indent where the gash had been.

"Goodness!" she yelped, snatching back her hand, feeling suddenly wide awake. "You're frozen!"

"Shut-up and sleep, ferry girl!" he snapped back at her.

"…You're frozen inside and out…" she grumbled. "You're a heartless menace, you know that? First you break your promise to Lord Koenma and let down all your friends–"

"I never made a promise to Koenma and I don't have any friends," Hiei cut in.

"–and then you got me sealed into this awful place–"

"I didn't invite you to come here, and nor did I seal you in here."

"–and now you're just being cold and mean."

"…Shut-up and go to sleep."

"You shut-up and go to sleep!"

"I'm trying to!"

"Then why don't you?"

"I can't sleep until you shut-up!"

"You're the one still talking!"

"Hn, it was definitely just an involuntary reaction…"

"What?"

Botan waited for Hiei to explain his last words, but instead he grabbed up his coat and climbed up into a nearby tree, making a bed for himself high in the branches.

"Perfect…" Botan sighed. "I'm stuck in a demon city with a moody, ungrateful, selfish squirrel."

"Shut-up and go to sleep!" Hiei yelled down at her.

Botan snarled out a noise of frustration before turning her back to his tree and lying down, pulling her jacket over her head. This, she decided, was hell.

**

* * *

**

Kurama waved to his mother from his bedroom window, silently relieved that he had managed to convince her that he was just sick and needed time off school to recover. She had, thankfully, not noticed the still-healing wound on his chest from his battle with Genbu, which was of course the real reason why he needed bed-rest that day. His school had not been badly affected by the Makai insects like Yusuke's had, and so it was still open that week, meaning that feigning illness was his only choice.

Once Shiori was out of sight Kurama turned around, intending to return to his bed, only to almost collapse in shock as he found himself looking at a grinning toddler stood in the centre of his mattress.

"Good morning, Kurama!" Koenma greeted him.

"What are you doing here?" Kurama replied.

Koenma's grin vanished.

"Don't sound so happy to see me, will you?" he said.

"I'm surprised to see you," Kurama replied. "I wasn't expecting you. Should I have been expecting you?"

"No, this is a surprise visit," Koenma said. "I need to ask a favour of you, Kurama."

"…Again?"

"Yes."

"Is this something to help us recover Hiei and Botan from the city of ghosts and apparitions?"

"No."

"Oh."

"My father isn't exactly forthcoming with helping us get another breach opened in the barrier to the city of ghosts and apparitions, and until I can convince him otherwise, Botan is stuck in there, and I'm down one assistant."

"…I see."

"Yes, so I'm going to have to ask you to perform some of Botan's duties in her absence."

Kurama's face twisted as he was unable to stop his mind from spawning images of himself in a pink kimono flying about on an oar gathering lost souls and ferrying them to spirit world.

"What exactly do you mean?" he asked nervously.

"I mean I'm preparing another case for Yusuke, and I'm going to need you to help him complete it," Koenma replied.

Kurama sighed, trying to look indifferent when he noticed Koenma eying him curiously.

"I can't say too much about it for now, my sources are putting together some information for me, and when I'm done I'll present all the facts in a tape," Koenma continued. "I'll need you to deliver the tape to Yusuke, you must make sure that he watches it, and you must accompany him on the mission I set. Usually Botan would go with him, and I don't want to send him out on his own, so I was hoping you could go with him."

"What about Kuwabara?" Kurama asked.

"…What about him?" Koenma asked.

"I thought he would accompany Yusuke on such a mission," Kurama explained. "He certainly seems eager to help."

"Yes, I suppose you could take him along with you too, but I'd rather you went with Yusuke too. Botan was knowledgeable about demons and spirit energy and likely problems Yusuke could run into on a case, and in her absence, you are the best candidate to offer that advice to Yusuke."

"What about one of your other ferry girls?"

"I can't afford to lose any more of my ferry girls."

Kurama narrowed his eyes slightly, resisting the urge to ask why it was okay to risk the life of a demon living in a human's body, but it was not alright to put a spirit at risk.

"Alright," he agreed. "I need to rest today to heal myself and get my strength back, but I should be fine by tomorrow."

"I probably won't be back to see you for another few days yet," Koenma replied.

"And until then, what should we do about Hiei and Botan?"

Koenma lowered his chin slightly.

"Curse Hiei and pray for Botan," he said quietly.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter:** (The plot begins…) Botan makes a strange new friend, Hiei returns to Maze Castle and something strange is happening in the city of ghosts and apparitions that neither Botan or Hiei understand. **Chapter 4 – I'm Going Crazy**

**A/N:** It always takes til chapter 4 or 5 for my plots to start, why is that…? Oh well! Thanks for all the reviews people, they make me smile, and please, keep them coming!


	4. I'm going Crazy

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**One last time, I swear:  
This story is: romance/drama  
This story is: Hiei/Botan**

**Recap:** Botan found Hiei trying to cut the prisoner tracking device from his leg and Kurama tried (and failed) to get to the city of ghosts and apparitions from demon world.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 4: I'm Going Crazy**

Botan awoke to the most repugnant smell she had ever had the misfortune to experience. By the time she had sat up, the smell was already so deeply soaked into her nasal cavities she could taste it. It tasted like charcoal, sweat, fat and fear.

At the other side of the fire Hiei was enjoying breakfast.

Botan groaned and turned from him, deciding that, as bad as the stench of what he was eating was, the sight of it – and the sight of him actually putting it into his mouth – was far, far worse. Her head ached, both from her still-healing injury and from a migraine, her stomach ached from hunger and her limbs felt weak. Being human was a lot harder than she had expected it to be. She almost wished that she could have slept for twice as long as she had, but she could see from the altered light around them that it was morning, so she forced herself to stay awake.

I survived one night in demon world, she thought to herself. I wonder how many more I will see before I die?

She groaned and tried to push the negativity from her mind. Usually when she felt sad or lacking in motivation she would think of a happy thought to cheer herself up. This time though she felt thoroughly depressed and near-suicidal and her happy thoughts all involved getting out of the city of ghosts and apparitions, which she already knew was impossible, so her task was a little harder than usual. She looked about herself in the hope of seeing something pleasant, but all she saw was Hiei chomping his way through the carcass of something, a snake eating eggs from a nest whilst a bird ate the snake, the faint red glow of the barrier over the sky reminding her that she was trapped and a pile of some sort of animal excrement alarmingly close to where her head had been only moments earlier during her sleep.

And a tall vase standing next to a resin sack, on top of which sat a variety of fruits.

Botan stared at the food for a long time, finding that it looked increasingly appetising and she seemed to be shuffling closer to it without consciously moving any part of her body. She looked back over her shoulder at Hiei, who was still preoccupied with his own meal, and she saw that he too had a vase standing next to him like the one in front of her. She turned back to the one closest to her, reaching out one finger to poke at it. It barely moved at her touch, but she distinctly heard water sloshing about inside it, which confirmed her suspicion that it was a type of flask. Desperate instinct took over and she grabbed it up, pulling off the stopper and sniffing at the contents. It smelt of nothing, which she took to be a good sign, and so she poked a finger down the neck of the flask until she felt the liquid within. She then stuck her finger in her mouth to taste it, tensing slightly as she expected to either experience the repulsion of a bitter taste or the pain of a poisoning. When neither came she took hold of the flask in both hands and lifted it to her lips, gladly gulping down as much as she could in one breath.

As Botan lowered the flask again she felt a little sick. Maybe drinking so much so quickly after being so thirsty for so long had been a bad idea: but she could not be sure. She was not really sure about such things, since her only understanding of the physicality of a human body came from conversations she had shared with the souls she had ferried, and most of them – being already dead – had not bothered to mention things like how to handle water intake after depriving yourself of it for a whole day. But her nausea began to wane as she once more noticed the food sat out beside her. She cautiously picked up a pink and white fruit that was the size and shape of a turnip but felt like an apple. She slowly turned it over between her fingers, frowning down at it sceptically.

"If I wanted you dead I'd use a more direct method than poisoning," Hiei said suddenly.

Botan grunted, the fruit jumping about in her hand as she jerked at the suddenness of his voice. She lifted her eyes to him but he was not looking at her and his mouth was once more full of food. Obviously he considered whatever he was eating to be too good for her, since he was barely moving his hands from his mouth and devouring his meal with unnatural fervour.

"Well thank you," she said, polishing the fruit on her vest. "You didn't have to get food and water for me."

"Hn," he grunted, before visibly swallowing a large chunk of food. "Having you around is like keeping an exotic pet."

Botan's face changed.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"It's difficult to find food for you and you screech a lot," he plainly replied. "Also you smell bad."

"And I suppose you want to put a collar on me and keep me a cage too, do you?" she snapped.

"…Don't tempt me."

Botan wanted to argue more with Hiei, she wanted to tell him exactly how much she detested him for getting her into the awful mess she was now in: but a painful croaking in her stomach reminded her of her priorities and she instead began eating.

At first Botan was simply glad that the food Hiei had apparently brought for her was edible, tolerably favoured and plentiful. But, as she consumed more and more of the food and her hunger lessened, she began to think about her circumstances again, and she started to find herself worrying.

"Where did you get this from?" she asked through a mouthful of food, watching Hiei intently.

He did not answer her, though she was sure that he must have heard her. Instead he finished off his meal and got to his feet, wiping the grease from his hands onto the material of his pants by his thighs. Botan slowly chewed through the food in her mouth, watching Hiei as he moved about their makeshift campsite. He picked up the bloody and tattered remains of his scarf, turning it around in the air before casting it into the fire. He then picked up his coat, shook it out and pulled it on. He picked up his own flask, tilting his head back to drink what was left inside of it.

"Where did you get this food from?" Botan asked again. "And the clean drinking water? I need to know where it came from if I'm going to survive here!"

Again Hiei did not answer her question. He walked around the fire towards her and she looked up at him expectantly, but his eyes never looked her way. He picked up her flask and took a swig from it before roughly replacing it on the ground. Botan glared down at it, her temper quickly rising as she saw the greasy mark his lips had left around the rim. With a growl of frustration she grabbed up the flask and threw it into the fire where it broke apart and the water killed the flames in an angry hiss. She started to turn back to Hiei to tell him what a selfish jerk she thought he was but found herself suddenly blinded and screaming in pain and shock as something smacked into her face, covering her head entirely.

"We're leaving," she heard Hiei say.

She hurriedly clawed at the object covering her head, pulling it down to peer over it at Hiei. He was slowly walking down a steep path that led towards the edge of the city and apparently he expected her to follow him, since he had thrown her jacket at her.

"Where are you going?" she called after him.

"Maze Castle, of course," he replied without turning around.

"Illusions of grandeur, perhaps…?" Botan muttered under her breath.

Apparently Hiei had been serious about taking over the city as the new ruler in the absence of the Four Saint Beasts, and presumably he was going back to Maze Castle to make it his now that Yusuke, Kurama and Kuwabara were out of his way. Botan rose to her feet and shook out her jacket, looking out over the city of ghosts and apparitions. Maze Castle was at one end of the city on her left, and, looking around carefully, the broken remains of an orchard on her right looked to be about the furthest point from the castle within the barrier's limits.

So apparently she was going to be living in the broken remains of an orchard for the foreseeable future, she concluded.

**

* * *

**

The ground around the dead and decaying orchard was barren and grey, and there was a slight smog of some kind covering large patches of the ground. There were all manners of creepy crawlies living in the rotted remains of the trees, but mercifully they scuttled away fearfully whenever Botan passed by them. In the middle distance there was a small cluster of spiky objects that Botan was telling herself were old tree branches. In the haze of the smog it was easy to pretend that they were not what their general shape suggested, which was lucky, because Botan did not want to have to set up camp next to an apparent bone-yard.

On her way to her destination, Botan had not seen any water, so she was not only still clueless about where Hiei had managed to find some but she was, once more, stuck without any and growing thirsty. En route to her destination, she had passed over a very large field of cultivated humans, which had, worryingly, sprouted flowers and fruits from their heads, some of which looked alarmingly like those Hiei had brought her for breakfast: it was another thought Botan tried to push from her mind.

There were shadows moving in the mist, but Botan was ignoring those too. She found a kind of bliss in ignorance, and so she was practising pretending that she was back in spirit world, and that all was fine. She wanted to think about her plan to escape the city of ghosts and apparitions, but all of her energy was focused on blocking out just how scary it was, just how isolated she was and just how alien she was amongst the residents of the city. She had virtually forgotten about Hiei, since she had decided that he would not be able to help her escape after all. He seemed to have accepted his fate sealed in the city and he was intending to adapt himself to his new home: Botan, on the other hand, was determined to fight her unfortunate circumstances until she either found a way out or died trying.

She looked about her dull grey surroundings again, turning in a complete circle on the spot. She was not alone, but she could not see anything of any great threat nearby, and so she opened her jacket, intending to remove it again since the temperature had risen. By the time she had unzipped it and moved to slide it off her shoulders, she found herself facing innumerable man-eating ghouls clad in hooded robes.

Botan paused long enough to consider the irony of her predicament before screaming and staggering back in vain. Her knowledge of the man-eating ghouls was limited, since they were very weak and did not officially rank as demons. She did know that they ate humans and that, from doing so, they could eventually evolve into a full demon. They were sufficiently weak that she believed she could easily best one of them in a fight. She could possibly even best two or three at once: but unfortunately she was facing over fifty of the fanged monsters, and that was where their strength lay. They typically flocked together in large numbers to attack their prey or an enemy, expecting to suffer many casualties but ultimately be victorious thanks to their advantage of numbers. It was the sort of group mentality that was rarely found in demon world: though Botan did wonder why such thoughts were going through her mind when she was facing imminent death and she ought to instead be thinking about a plan to fight or flee.

She quickly took out her oar, but before she could sit down onto it countless hands grabbed at it, and it was gradually pulled from her grasp, disappearing into the mass of bodies ahead of her. She summoned her baseball bat and managed to clobber a few ghouls over the head – but for every one she knocked down, several more clambered over its fallen body to take its place. She started walking backwards and swinging wildly about, occasionally connecting with a blow, managing to keep the monsters at arm's length from herself, but doing nothing to slow their advance. After several blind, aimless and pointless swings she felt her bat catch on something and she saw that three of the monsters had a hold of it. She stubbornly held on, trying to pull it back from their grasp, but in her distracted state, the monsters managed to advance on her. When she felt their hands on her arms she quickly dropped the bat and pushed and kicked her way free, running a few feet away from them before tripping over a tree root she had not been able to see through the smog.

Botan landed hard, almost winding herself – another disadvantage of being in a human body, she thought miserably – and she felt something slipping from one of her jacket pockets. She quickly grabbed up what she had dropped, sitting up to see what she had recovered. It was the three Mejiru Shiiru labels, which were, of course, of absolutely no use to her right then. She stuffed them back into her pocket and got to her feet, running on and searching her pockets as she went. The Psychic Spyglass was no use, the Demon Compass was no help either: but when she felt the Mystic Whistle she quickly pulled it out, deciding to use it to temporarily deafen her pursuers to allow her to make her escape.

Botan took a deep breath, the whistle poised in front of her lips. She realised then that she had absolutely no idea how to control the volume and range of the whistle, and her level of spirit energy was enough to send out the call up to 60 miles outwards. The city of ghosts and apparitions was probably no more than ten miles in diameter at its widest point, and so blowing the whistle would deafen every demon in the city and alert them to her exact location.

Botan put the Mystic Whistle back in her pocket. She could hear that the ghouls were catching up to her and she knew that she could not outrun them for long. She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket in one last attempt to find something – anything – that could help her fend off the monsters, becoming overcome with a unique mixture of delight and despair as she felt the Concentration Ring jangling about in her pocket.

The Concentration Ring would allow her to produce a Spirit Gun that could rival Yusuke's in power, but it would also drain her of spirit energy and leave her very vulnerable afterwards. And, unlike Yusuke, she could only use the attack once. She had one shot – albeit a powerful one – to kill off or at least scare off her pursuers, and then she would be prone to attack for possibly the rest of the day.

Maybe she should have gone with Hiei after all.

A hand grabbed at the back of Botan's jacket and she lost her balance, falling down and rolling over her own head. She scrambled to her feet but she was not quick enough to escape the monsters, who quickly surrounded her. With no other option left, Botan put the Concentration Ring on her finger and pointed at the middle of the hoard of ghouls, whispering a prayer under her breath that her gamble paid off.

**

* * *

**

Hiei stopped outside of Maze Castle. The first thing he noticed that displeased him was that the Gate of Betrayal had been reset. The second thing that irked him was that, at the end of the long entrance tunnel into the castle's courtyard, he could see the silhouette of another one-eyed bat monster waiting to trigger the switch and drop the roof on anyone who tried to enter. Apparently even though the Four Saint Beasts were gone, their minions were still upholding the laws of the city and the castle.

The trial ahead was no real problem, Hiei thought to himself. It was a mild inconvenience, but it was not a problem. It was an inconvenience because he could not go any further on his own, and he would need to find and convince someone to enter the tunnel with him. After that it was simple enough: he would just run out and leave the other person to be crushed, and then he could reset the gate himself from the inside again. Unfortunately that ferry girl had decided to disappear, so sacrificing her was not an option.

Hiei wondered if he ought to look for the girl. She was a useful tool for bribing spirit world with, after all. He was unsure if she was telling the truth about being stuck in the city with him or not, but even if she had gone back to spirit world, it was not really a problem for him. It was slightly unfortunate that he no longer had a hostage to brutally torture to gain his release from the city of ghosts and apparitions, but it was not a huge loss. The Four Saint Beasts had become powerful enough and raised an army strong enough to threaten spirit world, and so Hiei intended to do exactly the same thing: take over Maze Castle, rule the city of ghosts and apparitions for long enough to earn complete obedience from the citizens before bargaining with spirit world to have the barrier taken down. It was a flawless plan.

Hiei spun around, his eyes doubling in size as he heard and felt a tremendous blast of energy. In the far distance he saw a bluish beam of light that looked and felt like the spirit detective's signature attack. Having been on the receiving end of the blast once before himself, Hiei knew how devastating it could be, and he wondered what creature in the city of ghosts and apparitions could possibly possess that power and ability.

Slowly Hiei began to narrow his eyes. No creature in the city of ghosts and apparitions possessed that power and that ability. No creature in all of demon world possessed that power and that ability, because that power and that ability were formed by spirit energy, not demon energy. Apparently the ferry girl had lied to him. Apparently others could pass through the barrier into the city, because that blast indicated a non-demon fighter of strength that came close to worrying for Hiei, and that could only mean that guards from spirit world prison had arrived to capture him.

He watched the afterglow of the blast fade before looking into the entrance of Maze Castle again. He was either going to have to confront the spirits tracking him and kill them – which would possibly make things worse in terms of their determination to incarcerate him again – or he was going to have to take refuge in Maze Castle, where he would at least have the advantage of several death-traps between himself and any would-be pursuers. He could already hear the residents of the city stirring behind him in response to the unusual blast, and so unfortunately, he did not have long to make his decision.

**

* * *

**

Botan only realised that she had passed out after firing her Spirit Gun when she suddenly found herself being held up by two sets of hands and surrounded by a small group of demons she had not noticed approaching her beforehand. She looked around them fearfully, hoping that they did not share the robed ghouls' preference for eating people, all the while wondering why they were looking at her the way they were. They mostly looked confused, which she supposed was to be expected since her physical appearance did make her quite distinctive amongst them, but two of the demons at the front of the group looked almost amazed as they regarded her, and that made no sense at all.

"Who are you?" one of the awestruck demons asked.

Botan focused her attention on him, pausing to think before answering his question. He was a small, wiry creature who had clearly lived a very long life as the years were starting to take their toll on his appearance through his slightly sunken features, the mild creases in his skin and the rounding of his shoulders. Botan could only guess what sort of demon he was as he had no distinctive features that indicated what sort of powers he might possess. He had sounded more curious than accusing when he had spoken and so she chose to try to be casual in her reply.

"I'm Botan," she said.

"Botan?" the other amazed demon asked. "Oh…"

Botan turned her attention to the second demon, who had sounded as though she thought she ought to know Botan's name. She was clearly a leopard demon, with cat ears and a spotted tail, though she looked too delicate and pretty to be a fighter.

"You killed most of the human-eating ghouls and the rest fled into the barrier and killed themselves," the older male demon said.

"…They were trying to eat me, it was self-defence," Botan weakly replied.

"Those ghouls have lived outside this city since the Four Saint Beasts first took over Maze Castle," the demon continued. "They were here before any of us were."

Botan started to realise what was happening: apparently she had, inadvertently in her use of the Spirit Gun, eradicated the entire population of man-eating ghouls from the city of ghosts and apparitions, and now her actions had invoked the wrath of the locals. She supposed that what she had just done was every bit as bad as what Hiei had done when he had broken into the vaults of spirit world to steal the Artefacts of Darkness. Hiei had killed five ogres and for that he had been sentenced severely. Now Botan had just killed an entire race of beings. And, just as Hiei had been in the wrong realm when he had committed his crimes, so was she the jackdaw amongst peacocks, as Hiei had called her the day before.

"Suzaku promised them great things," the female leopard demon said. "He told them to feed and get stronger, but once the barrier went up, they couldn't find any humans to eat, so they started turning on us, the citizens of this city."

"We had to grow cultivated humans to feed them with to keep them at bay," the older male demon added.

"There were always so many of them, we could never have hoped to have killed them all," the leopard said.

Botan felt her panic start to subside. Perhaps her situation was not so bad after all. If the residents of the city hated the man-eating ghouls as much as they seemed to be saying that they did, perhaps they would not mind that she had just single-handedly slaughtered them in one blow.

"You're very strong, Botan," the older demon said. "Why have I never seen you around the city before now?"

"Um…"

Botan did not want to correct him by telling him that the strength she had just displayed was an illusion and something that she could only do once a day and with the help of the Concentration Ring, since it was likely that no demon would challenge her to a fight if they all thought that she was very powerful. However, a very powerful demon was likely to be well-known in the city, so explaining herself to the demons watching her expectantly was another matter entirely.

"Oh, she came from the sky, the same way the emiko came here," a shrill female voice said.

Botan looked about for the source of the voice but failed to locate it.

"The-the emiko?" she said, looking around the others. "You mean Hiei?"

She waited patiently as the group around her began muttering amongst themselves. Presumably they were already familiar with Hiei – probably because he had already stolen from them and possibly because he had drawn attention to himself the day before when the alarm on his prisoner tracking device had started going off.

"We will take you home," the older demon said suddenly, smiling at Botan in what she supposed was meant to be an amiable fashion.

"That would be lovely," Botan began carefully. "But my home is such a long way from here and I wouldn't want to be any bother–"

"We will take you home," the older demon interrupted her.

"But I really don't want to be a bother, and it's so far–"

"We must take you home now."

Botan started to make more excuses but gave up when the two demons holding her arms suddenly lifted her onto their shoulders and began carrying her towards the city. They were slightly different heights and she had a leg on each of their shoulders, meaning that she was sitting quite lop-sided, and as they began walking briskly over the uneven ground of the old orchard she was forced to focus all of her efforts onto keeping her balance.

As they entered the city, Botan noticed something had changed since her passage through the streets the day before. The day before she had walked amongst the locals unnoticed, but now they were standing out in the streets watching her intently. She supposed that being held aloft on the shoulders of two demons, being escorted by a group of around fifteen other demons and having a large, colourful bird inexplicably flying about her head was arguably more eye-catching than being just an individual walking alone along the city streets.

She had no idea where she was being taken to – that one older demon, who was now leading the way for the demons carrying her, had seemed confident that he knew where she lived – but she had a bad feeling that she was actually being taken to some sort of temple to be sacrificed in a ceremony in honour of the fallen Saint Beasts or else to be served as dinner. She could just about make out voices muttering and whispering behind her, but she unfortunately could not make out what they were saying, though she was already certain that they were talking about her.

And Botan's fears about being turned into a sacrifice multiplied when the group took her to the very edge of the city to the gate of Maze Castle itself.

**

* * *

**

Hiei looked about himself desperately, but apparently he had run out of stones. Looking back through the long tunnel that formed the Gate of Betrayal, he could see several stones of various sizes on the ground at the other end where he had thrown them and failed to hit his intended target: the one-eyed bat monster that was still floating about by the control switch waiting for him to attempt entry. He thought about arguing with it that it was pointless to activate the gate for just one person – how was it possible for one person to betray himself by leaving himself alone to take the weight of the gate – but the thought of arguing with a mindless little excuse for a demon was too demeaning. He would just have to find more stones and throw them harder and faster.

He turned around and started to walk away from the gate but slowed to a halt after just three steps as he sighted a small gang of demons walking towards him. It was not so much their approach or their unique mix of characters that concerned him, more that, for reasons he would probably never fathom, they were carrying that idiotic human-bodied ferry girl with them.

"Hiei!" she called out to him.

She almost looked pleased and relieved to see him. But only almost.

Hiei turned his back on her and started moving back towards the Gate of Betrayal. The demons behind him were putting her down and he was hoping that she would follow him into the tunnel, where he could leave her to be crushed by the roof and continue into the castle on his own.

"Hiei!" she called out again.

He heard her feet hurrying after him and he smirked to himself, stepping into the shadows of the Gate of Betrayal.

"Hiei, wait!"

She drew level with him and together they walked on through the tunnel.

"I've been thinking," she said, as though she thought that he might actually care what went on inside her tiny, vapid mind. "And, after seeing what's in this city and what's outside of this city, I've decided that you and I should stick together. Neither of us truly wants to be stuck here, and on our own there's not much that we can do about it, but if we work together maybe we can come up with a plan to escape."

If there had been enough time for him to do so before the bat monster activated the switch Hiei would have told the ferry girl that she had ruined her chance of being a part of his plan to escape when she had run off earlier, since the one thing he hated the most was a traitor who did not stay true their word: but the roof started to fall mere seconds after she had finished talking, and he had to divert his attention to catching it, since it was unlikely that she would be holding up much of the weight with her meagre physical strength.

"Welcome to the Gate of Betrayal!" the bat monster said.

"Oh, shut-up!" Hiei snapped back. "We already know what this is!"

"We-we do?" the ferry girl asked him.

He turned to her, feeling almost amused at what he saw. As he was – obviously and by a considerable margin – the stronger of the two, the roof had fallen to the height of his hands, meaning that the ferry girl, who was quite a bit taller than him, was standing in the most awkward position imaginable as she tried to make herself fit into the gap between the floor and the fallen roof.

"So how do we get out of this?" she asked him.

""We" don't," he flatly replied. "Only I do."

"Wh-what?"

Hiei grinned darkly, relishing the thought of seeing such a pathetic creature being squashed by the Gate of Betrayal. He did not even need to hurry, he thought to himself, since she would not be able to hold the roof without him and she would be crushed instantly. Unlike when he had passed through with Kurama and the others and he had been obliged to flip the switch back, this time he had no such burden to hinder him. Obviously he was holding almost the full weight of the gate, the ferry girl's stance alone told him that. In fact, he thought, she was holding so little of the weight that if she was the one to let go, he would probably manage to hold the gate on his own without her help.

Hiei's grin faltered slightly. If he was able to hold the gate on his own, it probably made more sense to send the girl out to flip the switch. But she would not be quick enough to avoid the boulder that would fall after she pushed the switch and so she would be crushed anyway. And besides, she was pointless, hopeless and helpless: he had no need for her.

"I'm going to let go," he announced.

"You can't do that!" she quickly replied. "We'll be crushed if you do!"

"Hn, I won't be," he corrected her. "I'll run out of here before the roof falls."

"A-are you sure about that?" she asked.

Hiei's grin faltered again. Was he sure about that? The girl was so weak the roof would fall the instant he stopped trying to hold it up, and even with his natural speed he might not make it out before all or part of him got crushed. Maybe letting the roof crush the girl was a bad idea after all. Maybe he would just let the boulder crush her instead.

"I'll hold the roof," he said. "You go out there and push that switch to halt the roof so that I can get out too."

"What about that bat monster?" she asked.

"Are you really so weak that something the size of your own fist can defeat you?" he sneered.

"…I don't like you, Hiei."

"Hn."

She awkwardly ran out from under the roof and Hiei was left holding up her share of the weight as well as his own: which, as he had suspected, only made the task fractionally more strenuous than it had been with her assistance. He watched her run towards the switch and reach out for it. The bat monster was making no attempt to stop her, though Hiei supposed that was only because it had nothing to bribe her with. He did still wonder why the creature had bothered activating the gate in the first place, but he concluded that it was probably too inane to know any better. It would probably continue activating the gate until the entire castle had been razed to the ground.

"Wait!"

Hiei tensed, his hands almost slipping from the roof as a small, hunch-backed, elderly demon scurried past him.

"Don't touch that switch!" he yelled.

"What the…?" Hiei grunted.

The old man ran up to ferry girl, grabbing her sleeve and pulling her hand back before she could push the switch.

"It's a trap!" he warned her. "You mustn't push that switch!"

"But I have to!" she replied. "Hiei's stuck there, he'll be crushed if I don't stop the roof!"

"It's too dangerous! I've seen what this thing does!" the old man insisted. "Stand back, I'll fix this!"

Hiei watched on in a state of pure bemusement as the ferry girl jogged off to one side and the old man pushed the switch, the roof locking in place in response and the customary boulder dropping down by the switch. Hiei was saved as he was able to creep out from under the halted roof, but the old man was squashed beneath the boulder.

"Oh goodness!" the girl cried, running over.

She began trying to shoulder the boulder over, which was even more ridiculous in Hiei's eyes. He sighed quietly before shaking his head at her.

"He's dead," he told her, moving over to her.

"But why?" she wailed.

"…Because a rock fell on him."

She gave him a flat look before stamping a foot at him and putting her hands on her hips.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it!"

"Hn."

Hiei rolled his eyes.

"I've never known of a demon sacrifice himself for a human before," he commented.

"Shh!" the girl said, waving her hands about desperately.

She pointed to something over his shoulder and with a slight turn of his head he saw the band of demons who had brought the girl to the castle still standing on the other side of the long entranceway, watching them with something akin to admiration in their idiotic eyes.

"They think I'm a powerful demon," the girl whispered to Hiei. "…Or else maybe a sacrifice to the rulers of this city…"

Hiei turned back to the girl, raking his eyes over her. Any idiot could see that she was no demon, nor was she even worthy to be offered as a sacrifice for even the lowliest of warlords. And yet a group of demons had just carried her to the castle and one of them had willingly laid down his life for her survival.

Hiei hoped that the stupidity that polluted the very air around the city was not contagious, and silently told himself that he would have to speed up his plan to conquer the city and convince spirit world to take down the barrier so that he could return to his true home – the darkness of demon world.

"So, for both our sake's, let's just figure a way out of this mess," the girl said to him. "I'll help you get back to… Wherever it is that you came from, and you will help me get back to spirit world."

"We already made that deal and you walked out on it," Hiei reminded her.

"You made a scary face and spoke in a mean voice," she said. "What was I supposed to do?"

"…I think I'm going crazy…"

"Does that mean you agree to be civil?"

Hiei turned from the girl and started to walk onwards to the castle doors, and after a brief hesitation, he heard the girl hurrying after him: and still he could not be sure if that was a good thing or not.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter:** Hiei and Botan continue into Maze Castle together, and even though Hiei finds himself depending more and more on Botan's assistance, he just can't bring himself to get along with her: least of all when she starts trying to diagnose his attitude problems and tries to fix them. Meanwhile, Yusuke awakens in the living world and learns that has become of Hiei and Botan. **Chapter 5: Fill Me With Doubt**


	5. Fill Me With Doubt

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Recap:** Botan and Hiei separated and Botan – in a bid to defend herself against the man-eating ghouls – made herself into an idol to the residents of the city of ghosts and apparitions, who took her to Maze Castle, where Hiei tricked her into entering the castle with him, and she narrowly escaped death by boulder when one of her new worshippers sacrificed himself to save her.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 5: Fill Me With Doubt**

Botan loved the pretty white boots she was wearing. Granted, they were not quite so pretty or quite so white any more, but they still looked lovely. Unfortunately, they were completely impractical, especially for navigating around a damaged old demon castle. And they were incredibly noisy: every step she took clattered against the rock floor and echoed off of the high walls of the strange, dark room they were in.

"Everything about you is noisy and unnecessary," she heard Hiei mutter.

He was several steps ahead of her, he had not looked back and he had spoken very quietly, so she was unsure if he had intended her to hear his words or not.

"Well everything about you is quiet and… Functional…"

Her retaliation had lost its impact when she failed to think of a clever way to end it, and once the words had left her mouth, she was left to cringe at the sound of her own voice bouncing off the walls around them. Hiei's soft low timbre had not echoed in the slightest, because, just like Hiei himself, it had made its point succinctly and then been swallowed into the shadows around them.

"This was Genbu's lair," Hiei said.

Botan did not know who or what "Genbu" was, but she felt that asking would be pointless, as Hiei would probably only reply with another cutting insult.

"It's very dark in here," she said instead. "There's a torch on the wall over there, would you light it for me please?"

Hiei did then turn around to look at Botan, and the glow of his crimson eyes was so intense she almost expected him to set her alight.

"I am not a tool or a slave," he hissed. "If you want a torch lit, light it yourself!"

"But you're a fire demon," she began nervously. "I just thought that maybe you could just–"

"My powers will not be your plaything, woman!"

"Okay, I'm sorry–"

"If you are going to insist on following me around, you could at least show me the same courtesy I have shown you!"

Botan could not stop her eyebrows from shooting up and her lips from curling in an expression of confusion. Hiei had shown her courtesy? When had that happened? And how had she managed to miss it? Was this about him bringing her food and water?

"I have never asked you to use your powers for something frivolous!" he added.

"You asked me to heal your leg!" Botan pointed out.

"That was not frivolous," he shot back.

"Well, now you're just being awkward!" she said before letting out a short, sharp sigh. "Double standards just confuse things, Hiei!"

"I will not be used as a firelighter by a blue-haired bimbo!"

"Well could you at least walk backwards?"

Botan was surprised to see all traces of anger fade from Hiei's features, his eyes growing slightly larger and his head tilting to one side almost imperceptibly. He looked confused – and the look was almost cute on him. But only almost.

"Why would I walk backwards?" he asked after a short silence.

"Because you have that lovely white star in your hair, and it's almost luminous in these dusky conditions," Botan replied.

Surely that should have been obvious to him, she thought. Although apparently it had not, as his brow darkened over and his mouth twisted into a sneer of disgust, contempt and rage.

"Idiot!" he snarled.

"Now you're just being rude," Botan said stubbornly. "I can't see very well in this darkness, and if you won't light a torch for me or keep your little white punky bit where I can see it, I might get lost."

"Maybe we should hold hands."

Botan, still tense and riled up by self-righteous pomp, barely registered the implications of Hiei's response, only realising exactly what he had said when he slowly held out one hand, palm up, towards her, and the outrage on his face gave way to a slightly goading, slightly sinister look. Her eyes lingered on his face, on the slightly askew angle of his eyebrows – barely noticeable beneath his bandana – the increasingly noticeable upwards kink of one corner of his mouth and the intensity in his red, red eyes. Her haughty pout dissolved into a trembling mess and she lowered her eyes to avoid having to see how much pleasure he would no doubt derive from having unsettled her so. But in lowering her eyes from his face, she found herself looking at his proffered hand, which was still awaiting her response. If the look on his face had not been confirmation enough, the position of his hand was the final proof that this was not a kind offer, but rather a challenge, a dare almost. His fingers were open but slightly curled and his palm was slightly cupped rather than lying flat, making his entire hand look ever so slightly clawed, poised and ready to snap on its prey. Botan suspected that if she did put her hand in his, she would shortly find herself with broken fingers: or worse.

She cleared her throat and held her head up high, walking forwards to close the distance between them, trying not to flinch at the almost painful sound of her boots clopping along the stone floor and every footstep ringing around the walls, not to mention the discomfort the boots were starting to cause her tired and swollen feet. She stopped as close to Hiei as she would dare let herself get, and lifted one hand. She stopped short of her goal, her delicate, slender fingers hovering over his hand, which she was sure had become more clawed in the last few seconds. At such close range, she could see far more detail of his hand than she actually wanted to: the lines of his palm were ingrained with dirt as though he had been clawing at the ground some time earlier and his fingernails were bordered with faint traces of dried blood – his own or someone else's? Botan moved her eyes to her own hand, noticing that it was dirtier than usual, but that did not detract from how fragile and insignificant she thought her own fingers looked against Hiei's. His fingers were possibly shorter than hers, and yet they looked larger because they were thicker – it looked as though even his fingers were packed with muscles.

"Are you afraid of me, ferry girl?" he asked her, his voice nothing more than a velvet whisper in the darkness.

"No," she lied.

His smirk grew a little more and, determined not to be intimidated, Botan moved her hand over his, stopping so close to his hand that she could feel the heat of his skin against the underside of her palm. He looked down at her hand and something flickered across his eyes, his smug expression losing some its arrogance.

"Just try to keep up with me," he said, lifting his eyes to hers. "Or else I will drag you with me by that pretty little ponytail of yours."

Botan gasped, her hand retracting from him to cover her open mouth. Her instinct was to tell him that he was being unreasonably rude when she was clearly only trying to help him, but the look in his eyes and the way he had grinned – showing far too much of his teeth – when he had issued his threat kept her silent, lest he follow through with it. His eyes lowered to her feet and then slowly wandered back up the length of her body, and although his expression did not change throughout, Botan felt increasingly exposed as he carried out his task, giving new meaning to a phrase she had often thought absurd: "he was undressing me with his eyes".

He then turned and started to walk on and Botan made sure to stay close to him so as not to lose sight of him. It was very dark in the big stone room, and she wondered how Hiei was able to see clearly enough to move around as effortlessly as he was. He slowed a few times as they continued their journey, and Botan wondered if he had done so deliberately in the hope that she would accidentally walk into him, as she was sure that he subtly glanced back over his shoulder each time.

"Stairs," he muttered.

Botan almost tripped as she made to follow him, quickly adjusting her step as she realised that he had been issuing her a warning of what lay ahead of them. The staircase was mercifully a little lighter than the room below it had been, and it seemed to lead to daylight. Relieved to see the sky again – because, despite Maze Castle being quite impressively enormous, Botan had felt quite claustrophobic being inside it with Hiei – Botan did not even think about how odd it was that the stairs were leading to open air, the oddity of her destination only occurring to her as she got line of sight of what lay at the summit of the steps: a ruin.

"Oh my!" she exclaimed as she stumbled up the last few steps, which were also damaged, onto the broken remains of a floor. "What happened up here, I wonder?"

"A fool with a loud voice shouted too much," Hiei told her.

Botan thought that he was probably insulting her somehow with his reply, but she decided to ignore it for the sake of working alongside him until she had secured her freedom from the city of ghosts and apparitions.

"Fetch your broom."

Botan glared at Hiei, her eyes ablaze and her lips tightly pursed.

"The hallway here has been destroyed, as you can see," he added. "You will fly me over to the main tower."

He made a casual gesture at the foreboding tower that stood across the ravine they were overlooking.

"I beg your pardon?" Botan asked haughtily.

Hiei turned to her fully, flashing his teeth as her like an animal threatening to bite.

"Get your broom and fly me over there!" he said firmly. "And stop talking at me unnecessarily!"

"Good manners cost nothing, but are worth an entire kingdom," Botan returned. "If you can't say please, if you can't ask me nicely, you could at least just ask me for help instead of ordering me around! You are not my superior, and nor am I yours, so let's at least try to be civil to each other, shall we?"

"Get your broom and do as I tell you!" Hiei snapped. "And don't ever try to call us equals again: I am an independent agent, you are a mindless slave of spirit world!"

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar!"

"…What does that even mean?"

"It means sweetness will make people like you better than bitterness will!"

"Stop churning out the pointless adages, get out your broom and get me over there!"

"Stop ordering me around!"

"You're a servant, you should be accustomed to taking orders!"

"And you're an incredibly rude little man!"

"And you're an incredibly repugnant excuse for a woman!"

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to be so awfully rude to a lady?"

Hiei momentarily looked shocked at Botan's rebuttal, but he quickly covered the look with one of mounting rage that left her stumbling away from him fearfully, her heels eventually colliding with the rubble around her. She lost her balance and fell backwards, summoning her oar on instinct and clambering onto it before she fell too far. She raised herself up to be level with Hiei once more, but remained what she hoped was a safe distance away from the rubble he was standing amongst. He was still glaring at her angrily, and she could see his chest and shoulders heaving beneath his long black coat, which only confirmed that she had said or done something to leave him utterly incensed: but what?

**

* * *

**

Yusuke groaned and blinked blearily, the daylight seeping through the blinds on the window at the side of his bed seeming almost unbearable. His head felt heavy and like it was filled with water, his limbs were aching and weary and a few points on his body felt hot and raw, as though he had been burned by something. As his eyes started to focus, he saw the roof of a bedroom that was not his own, and from the corner of his eye, he saw a large figure sat on the chair at a study desk and a tall, slender figure stood behind the chair. He slowly turned his head towards them, his eyes instinctively focusing on the large, orange-haired individual sat watching him curiously.

"Kuwabara?" he said.

It had hurt to talk, his throat was hot and dry, and his voice sounded slightly strained even to his own ears.

"Hey Urameshi, you've been out for a whole day. How do you feel?" Kuwabara answered him.

Yusuke groaned, slapping a hand against his forehead.

"The school's shut because of the damage caused by the teachers who were infected by the Makai insects, so we've got the whole week off," Kuwabara told him.

"Where the hell am I?" Yusuke asked, dragging his hand down his face.

"You're at my house!" Kuwabara replied. "Keiko told your mom you were staying here, so she won't be looking for you."

"I don't think she would notice if I disappeared for a whole week," Yusuke grumbled.

He sighed, moving his eyes back to Kuwabara and noticing, again, the figure stood behind him.

"Kurama," he said. "Hey, I forgot about you."

"Kurama gave you a special plant potion to help you recover faster," Kuwabara said. "He gave me some too."

"Hey…"

With some effort, Yusuke propped himself up onto his elbows and looked about the room, worry knotting in the pit of his gut as he did so.

"Wh-where are the girls?" he asked.

He started to panic when Kuwabara lowered his head and his face became solemn, and behind him Kurama turned his head away slightly.

"Kuwabara?" Yusuke asked. "Hey! Where's Keiko? Is she okay? The last I saw, she was surrounded by possessed teachers, where is she now?"

Kuwabara kept his head down and Kurama kept his head turned away.

"Kuwabara!" Yusuke roared, pushing aside the sheets covering him and stumbling out of the bed. "Answer me, you bastard!"

He lunged at Kuwabara, grabbing two handfuls of his shirt and trying to force him to look him in the eye.

"Where are Keiko and Botan, Kuwabara?" he demanded.

"I'm here, Yusuke."

Yusuke sighed in relief and released Kuwabara, turning to Keiko, who had just entered the room carrying a tray of drinks.

"I thought those teachers had…" he began.

For a brief moment, Yusuke was overwhelmed by the worry he had felt thinking that the worst might have befallen Keiko and the relief and joy he felt seeing her standing before him unharmed. But the moment was brief, as Yusuke quickly resorted to an emotion he understood a little better: anger.

"Was this meant to be a joke?" he asked, rounding on Kuwabara. "Did you think it was funny to make me think the girls had been hurt?"

Yusuke expected Kuwabara to start snoring in amusement or to call him an idiot for falling for his completely inappropriate joke: but neither happened, and both Kuwabara and Kurama remained solemn.

"Wait…" Yusuke whispered, glancing around all three faces in the room with him. "Where's Botan?"

"She's been detained," Kurama answered him quietly.

Yusuke turned to him expectant of a more complete explanation, but Kurama merely sent a pointed glare at Keiko and then raised his eyebrows slightly as he met Yusuke's eyes again, telling him that Botan's absence was not something they could discuss in front of Keiko – though Yusuke thought that Keiko ought to know by now that he was a spirit detective, after she had been hunted down by the humans infected by the Makai insects and rescued by a ferry girl.

"I don't understand," he said, shaking his head in confusion. "Detained? Detained where?"

"It was that puny jerkface, Hiei," Kuwabara said in a low voice, his eyes narrowing sternly. "Because of him being all selfish and small, my beautiful Botan is trapped in the city of–ow!"

Kuwabara's head snapped around to glare at Kurama, who had just blatantly stamped a heel onto one of his feet.

"There was a small misunderstanding yesterday," Kurama told Yusuke. "Hiei did not return here as he was meant to and Botan pursued him. Unfortunately, they have both become detained and cannot return here at present."

Yusuke mumbled out a few disjointed words of confusion before resigning to simply shaking his head again.

"But…" he began. "Botan didn't come with us to the… I don't understand how she got to… And Hiei…?"

Kurama poked Kuwabara in the shoulder and as he looked up at him gave a small jerk of his head.

"Oh, right," Kuwabara groaned, rising to his feet. "Uh, hey Keiko, you didn't get a drink for Urameshi, I'll help you get another drink."

"Oh, but…" Keiko began, looking at Yusuke almost desperately.

Kuwabara walked over to her and ushered her back out of the room, closing the door behind them. As the door clicked into place Yusuke turned to Kurama expectantly.

"Alright, fox boy, start talking," he said sternly.

"After you defeated Suzaku, Kuwabara donated some of his life energy to you in order to save your life," Kurama replied. "After that, both of you were left unconscious, and Hiei ran off. He said that living in the city of ghosts and apparitions may be a far cry from living in demon world proper, but it was still infinitely preferable to living in a city in the human world. I carried you back to the living world and helped Kuwabara back here, and when I told Botan about Hiei, she took it upon herself to go to the city of ghosts and apparitions to attempt to recover him. She did it without our knowledge. I tried to reach her, but alas could not. She is sealed into the city, along with Hiei and the residents of the city. Spirit world cannot release her at present."

"What?" Yusuke said faintly. "Why would Hiei do that? After all we went through as a team… I thought he was on our side?"

Kurama gave a small shrug.

"Sadly Hiei was always a rebellious, unpredictable one," he said. "And sadly he has made this choice, and Botan has foolishly gone there after him."

"Well where's Koenma?" Yusuke asked. "Let me talk to that toddler bitch, I'll make damn well sure spirit world let Botan back out of that place!"

"Please, Yusuke, it is not nearly so simple," Kurama said, holding up his hands in a calming gesture. "I am as eager as you are to see Botan rescued from that place, but there is nothing we can do at present. We must be patient for now and trust in Koenma – he is trying his best for his ferry girl, I am sure he will not let us down."

"I'm not sure about that!" Yusuke retorted. "That cocky ankle-muncher is a fly son of a bitch and he's always hiding something! I want to talk to him!"

"Yes, well, for now you ought to be resting, because you are still significantly weakened from your battle. For a body like yours that is still relatively unaccustomed to expending such large amounts of spirit energy – and in this instance also life energy – what you have been through was a terrible strain and will take its toll for the next few days at least. Perhaps once you are coherent enough to string together more cogent descriptive insults against Koenma, you will be ready to face him again."

"…What?"

Kurama smiled patiently but said no more as the door opened and Kuwabara and Keiko returned.

"Yusuke, you should sit down and take it easy," Keiko said to him, handing him a bottle of Ramune.

"I don't have time for that," he grumbled. "I need to find Botan."

"Oh, Botan, yeah," Keiko said, nodding her head. "She told me all about the detective work you've been doing."

Yusuke spat out half the mouthful of soda he had taken, the rest being sucked into his airways and leaving him choking until his eyes watered.

"Hey, watch it Urameshi!" Kuwabara complained. "You just spit that on my limited edition, signed Megallica poster!"

"Botan told you about my detective gig?" Yusuke asked Keiko, having not even heard Kuwabara's protest.

Keiko nodded.

"What exactly did she tell you?" Yusuke asked.

He was curious. He had always wondered how he would go about telling anyone what he did for spirit world, and if Botan had found a way to tell someone as concerned as Keiko was likely to be at hearing the news, he had to know what it was.

"She told me that you're working as an assistant to a famous detective, and you got pulled into this latest case with the drug traffickers who tried to take over our school!" Keiko said.

Yusuke could not decide which amazed him more: the sheer absurdity of Botan's explanation or the fact that Keiko looked earnest and as though she had bought every word of it without question. He slowly turned to Kurama and shook his head.

"She won't last five minutes in that place," he said quietly. "She's an idiot with a very big mouth. She'll say something dumb and she'll get herself killed."

**

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Hiei could hear and even feel his own pulse throbbing in his head. His heart did not often beat, but it was beating hard at that moment, pumping blood and adrenaline around his body to further fuel his rage. His eyes were wide, his pupils pin-pricked and his glare fixed onto the source of his ire: an ignorant servant of spirit world, hovering infuriatingly just beyond his reach on her oar, watching him carefully. It was lucky for her that she had fallen when she had, because he had yet to be sure that she would be any use to him alive, and the moment she had dared mention his mother, Hiei had been prepared to kill her – something she clearly understood, as she was wisely staying away from him.

Hiei did not care if the stupid wench insulted him – he was quite accustomed to be insulted, and no insult he received ever bothered him because, quite frankly, he was secure enough in himself not to care what anyone else thought about him; but he drew the line at anyone mentioning his mother. It was not that he was insecure about his relationship with his mother – or rather the lack thereof after she had let the witches of the ice village cast him out and consequently died before he could find her in his adult life – it was simply that it was a part of his life nobody had any right to criticise and anyone who did dare mention it had to die.

"You know, we should be working together," the stupid woman called over to him. "Let's not argue any more. And let's stop the insults. If we think that we can't be civil to each other, let's just not speak to each other at all. Let's just work together to find a way out of this city and then we'll be free to go our separate ways."

"I don't think so," Hiei growled back.

He saw the girl give a mild shiver at the rougher sound of his voice and for a moment his anger eased as he allowed himself to enjoy seeing her finally fearing him like she ought to.

"I-I don't understand what changed," she said quietly, her voice almost lost in the wind. "The things you said to me were very hurtful and personal, I was only defending myself."

"You know damn well that wasn't all you were doing," Hiei replied.

She shook her head, touching a finger to her lips and rolling her eyes skyward in an almost infuriating pensive pose. Clearly she was an idiot, and, apart from her potential use to him as a hostage, she was of absolutely no use to him alive.

"Did I make a faux pas?" she eventually asked, lowering her eyes to him once more.

Using her as a hostage did require keeping her alive, Hiei thought as he ground his teeth in frustration, but it did not require that he kept her in one piece. In fact, maybe that snot-nosed brat Koenma would be more likely to respond to a ransom if he saw that his precious ferry girl was missing a finger or ten.

"Oh, I understand now!" she said, thumping the side of one fist against an open palm. "You're one of those naughty little boys who ran away from home and joined a gang!"

Hiei felt something pop by his forehead. It could have been the beginning of an aneurism.

"Yes, it all makes perfect sense now!" the idiot continued. "You're upset because I mentioned your mother, and that must be a sore point for you because you ran away from her when you were a just a young lad!"

Who used words like "lad"?

"Yes, I've seen your sort before, young man!" she continued, looking suddenly quite sure of herself. "I've been collecting souls since before you were so much as a twinkle in you daddy's eye Hiei, I've seen them all."

Hiei's eyes widened and his heart stopped as the ferry girl thrust a hand down her vest and began groping around her own breasts. He had seen a lot of unusual sights in his life, but this had to be one of the most bizarre. It was almost hypnotic to watch, and his anger was rapidly giving way to confusion. When she recovered her hand and grabbed the hem of her vest, lifting it up to expose her midriff Hiei's eyes almost popped out of his head – what was she doing? Was she coming on to him? Was this some sort of mating ritual for her people?

"Oopsie, silly me!" she said, dropping her vest and rolling onto one hip.

Hiei's mouth opened slightly as she slipped a hand down the waistband of her pants, her tongue poking out slightly as her hand felt around under her clothes. Just as Hiei began contemplating making an attempt to jump at her she pulled her hand up sharply and sat back down onto her oar properly.

"Ta-da!" she said, waving the small notebook she had just recovered from her pants. "Now let me see…"

She opened it out and began flicking through the pages, her nose inches from the book as she apparently searched for something within.

"Ah, here we are!" she said. "The mean little boy whose mother didn't love him!"

Hiei started to get angry again, tensing himself as the stupid ferry girl began drifting towards him, gradually bringing herself into comfortable pouncing range.

"This type of soul is stubborn, arrogant, rude and often violent," she read from her book. "As a ferry girl, your best hope for coaxing this sort of vagabond into the afterlife is to take a motherly approach. Think of yourself as the mother this boy never had: be firm but reassuring. He may cry, and if he does, it's alright to give him a cuddle and reassure him – just be sure that he doesn't use this as excuse to steal from you or to take advantage of your good nature."

The girl was hovering over the ground immediately in front of Hiei by the time she had finished reading, and she lifted her eyes from the text to smile at him in an almost pitying manner.

"So there you are," she said, closing the book. "Let's have no more of your nonsense."

She tapped the book against his head as though she were scolding a puppy, which was beyond ridiculous. Hiei roughly snatched the book from her hand, ignoring her squeal of complaint and grasping the spine of the book firmly in both hands.

"Now this is exactly what the book was talking about!" she said, waggling a finger at him. "That was very naughty and unnecessary. Give it back and I might even let you cry on my shoulder."

Hiei bared his teeth and tightened his grip on the book until his knuckles turned white and the cover started to creak under the pressure.

"Also, you're being very silly," she added. "Nobody can rip apart a book as thick as that. You might pull a muscle trying to, so just stop right now."

With an angered snarl, Hiei effortlessly tore the book in half, stray shreds of paper frittering through the air between them. The ferry girl gasped, her pink eyes darting about to watch the pieces falling through the air. Hiei did not stop there though: he pressed the two halves of the book together and tore them again, before resorting to frantic and rapid swipes of his hands that quickly reduced the book to nothing more than a pile of dust at his feet.

"Hiei!" she protested. "That was my notebook! I needed that! That was my guide to being a good ferry girl!"

"Hn, it figures that a dunce like you would need a guidebook to tell you how to play delivery girl!" Hiei retorted.

"That guidebook was a symbol of spirit world!" she argued. "And you, Mister Hiei, are already in quite enough trouble with spirit world! When Lord Koenma finds out that you did this, he will be most displeased!"

"I don't care," Hiei drawled. "I don't care about you, I don't care about Koenma and I definitely don't care about spirit world. Spirit world, woman, is a shit-hole!"

"Well you can only judge a shit-hole by the doo-doos that pass through it!"

Hiei froze. Her response had been quite illogical – not to mention worded as though it had originated from the mind of a human infant – since the "doo-doos" that passed through spirit world were Koenma and his father, the ferry girls and human souls: none of which had anything to do with Hiei, so how she thought her response would be insulting or sensible was beyond his reasoning.

"Now why don't you just grab onto my oar, and I'll take you over to the opening in that tower."

Dumbfounded, and frankly more interested in getting to the main tower of the castle than arguing with a mentally inferior ferry girl, Hiei grabbed the handle of the girl's oar, just above the blade, and tugged her down slightly, ignoring the way she yelped and grabbed at the handle to stabilise herself. He leapt upwards, his feet landing soundlessly on the blade, his hand still clutching the handle to hold himself in place.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

Hiei glowered at her and her chipper smile faded. She sighed and turned her head sharply to look towards the front of the oar, her bouncy ponytail whipping around with the momentum of her action, the ends of her hair barely missing slapping Hiei over the nose. He bared his teeth at the back of her head, and as she started to fly them across the gap, the wind began playing with her ponytail, causing it to sway back and forth. Hiei's eyes followed its every movement, unable to forget the idea that had occurred to him back in Genbu's lair: as soon as she had expired her usefulness flying him over the broken hallway he was going to grab that stupid piece of hair and drag her around by it. In fact, he thought as he watched it swaying back and forth, the top part by her head where she had a silly red ribbon wound around it was just about the right size for one of his hands to comfortably fit around – it was almost conveniently like a handle. He wondered how loudly she would scream as he dragged her around, how badly she would cry and if she would beg him for mercy.

At the other side of the ravine she took her oar down low and then turned to Hiei expectantly. He leapt off of it and waited for her to get off it and banish it so that she could not escape him this time. She slid to the ground and he cracked the knuckles of his right hand, fixing his eyes onto that red band of ribbon at the top of her head, readying himself to grab onto it. She banished her oar and turned to him, seemingly oblivious to the borderline-psychotic look of malice burning in his eyes.

"Oh, careful there, Hiei!" she said.

Hiei paused, momentarily confused by her words, and in his moment of confusion, she stepped closer to him and reached out a hand towards one side of his face.

"The wind has ruffled your hair a little bit," she said. "It's almost poking you in the eye! Let me just get that for you…"

Hiei stiffened on instinct as her fingers made contact with his cheek. In his past experience, physical contact was always painful, but again this girl demonstrated that sometimes that was not the case as she gently dragged her soft fingertips around the outer corner of his right eye. He flinched slightly as he felt a piece of his own hair tickle at his eyelashes, and for some reason the idiot ferry girl found his reaction amusing as she smiled and even giggled slightly. She gently moved her fingers into the hair behind his temple, combing the stray piece of hair back into place. He supposed that she had done something useful, but he quickly grew angered at the amount of time she spent touching at the side of his head.

"Enough!" he barked, grabbing her wrist and pulling her arm downwards with so much force she stumbled a step closer to him as her shoulder was jerked down to his height.

Hiei hesitated, keeping his tight grip around the girl's wrist and holding her in position, twisted downwards, her nose mere inches from his. He was gripping onto her as hard as he could without actually causing any lasting damage and giving her one of his more threatening glares, but strangely she did not look as afraid as he had expected her to. There was a sense of tension and apprehension in her bright eyes, but there was also still more than just a hint of that sympathetic, motherly look she had been giving him since her stupid spirit world notebook had told her that she ought to "mother" him.

"Hn," he grunted, roughly releasing her and stepping past her.

He walked on into the tower, taking himself along a short, stone walkway, cursing himself out loud as he reached its conclusion and saw what lay there: he should have remembered, or at least realised from the increasing heat and the illusion of liquefaction in the air around him.

"On my, it's like the belly of a volcano in here!" the ferry girl commented unnecessarily as she caught up to him.

Hiei pulled off his coat and rolled it up into a ball. With the platforms that had once offered a route across the lava mostly destroyed after Byakko's fight with that big, orange-haired human, the only way across now was on the ferry girl's oar. She was proving to be surprisingly useful so far, which was quite infuriating, because, as long as she was so useful, it was in his best interests to keep her alive and in one piece, which was unfortunate because instinct was demanding that he kill her, ideally by tearing her slowly apart, piece-by-piece. Hiei placed his rolled up coat down on the ground in the middle of the rocky platform overlooking the lava pit and lay down on his back, resting his head on his coat.

"Hiei, what are you doing?" the infuriating woman asked.

"What does it look like?" he sneered. "I'm going to sleep, and I expect you to remain silent and stay away from me until I wake up again."

"But… What am I supposed to do while you sleep?"

"Hn, I don't care. Maybe you could try contemplating the meaning of your pointless existence."

He heard her huff and stomp her feet, but she said no more, and after a while he heard her footsteps move away from him and then her clothes rustling as she sat down somewhere several feet away from him. He did not really care what she did, he did want to sleep for a bit, but mostly he was not yet ready to once more ask her for help – something that was truly quite demeaning for him to do. He hoped that she would wake him up or do something annoying so that he could threaten to take her life for the hindrance, and then bargain that he would only spare her if she flew him across the lava.

Blackmail was definitely easier than asking for help.

**

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**Next Chapter:** Hiei inadvertently speaks a certain girl's name in his sleep and Botan loses the plot – and both of them start to show the worst of themselves as they start to feel the pressure of being stuck in a place they don't want to be and with a person they don't want to be with. **Chapter 6 – I Know The Goal**

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**A/N:** Poor Leona Lewis, I'm just f'ing up her best song ever!

As this is (I promise this time!) a relatively short story (short by my standards, like probably 100-150k words), there really is only two parts to the story, and this is still very much the first part. This part is kind of vanilla (bland, general, most people will be neutral about it) but the second part is like tiramisu (decadent, indulgent, sickening and probably only bearable in small doses… if at all…)


	6. I Know The Goal

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Recap:** Yusuke woke up (earlier than he did in the anime, I know) and Kurama explained to him what had become of Botan and Hiei, and back in the CGA (city of ghosts and apparitions) Botan and Hiei continued to fail to get along, with Botan mistakenly assuming that Hiei disliked people mentioning his mother because he was a runaway rebel and Hiei taking revenge by falling asleep and leaving Botan to sweat it out by the lava pit.

**

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**Chapter 6: I Know The Goal**

The heat in the cavern of lava was unbearable. Botan was sweating so much she felt like she was drowning. She had discarded her jacket almost immediately upon sitting down, and, once she had noticed the rise and fall of Hiei's chest slow and felt confident that he was asleep, she had taken off her boots and pants too. She had been sat for some time in just her underwear and vest, and she was beginning to think about removing the vest too, as the feeling of it sticking to her drenched lower back was starting to make her feel physically sick. She still could not believe that Hiei was so oblivious to the sweltering heat and that he had actually fallen asleep – what a lazy little jerk!

Botan's hands – like every other part of her body, she thought miserably – were dripping with sweat and the skin on the underside of her palms and fingers was starting to prune. It was a horrible and entirely new experience for her in her human body. She had experienced her skin wrinkling from getting too wet before, but that had been the result of a prolonged soak in a bath, which had been a pleasant way to experience the unusual human phenomenon. Wrinkling from too much sweat was quite disgusting. When she touched her fingertips together she winced at the sickening feeling of the warped skin and the way it felt to touch things with fingers that were so creased. But despite the wrinkling, loss of sensation and the slippery wetness of her fingers and palms, Botan was trying – in between stealing glances at Hiei to make sure that he was still asleep – to fix her broken communication mirror.

Botan did not know exactly what Hiei had planned or where he was leading her, but she did know that if she could fix the communication device then she could call her stalwart boss, Lord Koenma, and ask him to help her. She could also contact Yusuke and find out if how he was recovering from his fight against the Four Saint Beasts and hopefully encourage him to help persuade spirit world to send help. Her communication mirror had been stepped on by one of the teachers under the control of a Makai insect, and although the casing had been shattered, most of the wiring was still in tact, and so fixing it might not be an impossible task, she deduced. It would not provide a video function, since the screen had been crushed and most of it was missing, but the speaker and microphone might be repairable, and it could be used as a simple phone to spirit world and Yusuke, and that was really all Botan needed it for.

She shuffled awkwardly where she sat. The rocky outcrop they were stationed on was hot to the touch, and she could see that her feet and the backs of her legs were red from touching the hot stone around her. She wondered if she ought to put her boots back on and stand, but her feet, which had already been quite swollen and blistered from wearing her impractical boots, were now so badly swollen that she doubted she would be able to get her boots back on. She glared over at Hiei bitterly: why was he so unaffected? His sleeping face was the picture of tranquillity, and his smooth olive skin was as dry as ever, with not so much as one drop of sweat formed on his body. He was shirtless, but he was still wearing a thick cloth bandana around his head, and his bare back was lying against the burning rock, and yet still he remained unaffected. Obviously he had some sort of secret for managing to keep his cool – physically speaking, Botan thought, since Hiei had demonstrated several times already that he was entirely unable to keep his cool in an argument – and she wanted to know what it was. It was probably something simple, she thought, something that only someone accustomed to having a physical presence would understand, and he had probably deliberately stopped where he had, knowing that she would suffer in her own ignorance.

Botan wondered why she had bothered coming to the city of ghosts and apparitions in the first place: Hiei was certainly not grateful for her assistance so far, and when they did eventually get out of the city, what would she tell Lord Koenma? She could hardly say that Hiei had been civil and helpful or that his remaining behind after the others had returned had been a mistake or an accident. Frankly, after the way he had been behaving, he deserved nothing better than to be taken right back to prison and thrown into a cell and left to rot, she thought. Although, according to her ferry girl notebook, his type was potentially salvageable as a civil and productive member of society, and all he really needed was some counselling for his issues with his mother. Had he not – very childishly, she thought – torn up her notebook, she might have been able to find some high level questions or words of advice to give to him regarding his problems, and maybe afterwards he would have become more agreeable.

Or not, since he was apparently just a selfish and cruel monster.

Botan placed her broken communication mirror down onto the ground and peeled her vest from her body, wringing it out in front of herself and gasping when a few drops of sweat actually fell from the material, leaving small dark spots on the rock, which quickly evaporated from the heat. She then shook her vest out and tried to wipe her face with it, cringing first when all she felt was a hot wet cloth smearing hot wetness over her face and then again when she realised that the vest smelt quite… Bad.

She snatched the vest back from her face, holding it out at arm's length to glare at it. Why did it smell so bad? She decided she was definitely not going to put it back on, smelling like that, but for some reason, the smell seemed more intense, even though the vest was the full length of her arms from her face. Then, slowly, she began to realise why the vest smelt the way it did: it had taken the smell from her own body. Botan lifted her arms a little and slowly turned her head to one side, moving her nose closer to her armpit and sniffing cautiously.

She yelped out loud and threw away her vest in shock and disgust as she realised that the pungent smell was indeed coming from her own body – yet another downside of being human that nobody had prepared her for – apparently sweating a lot made a human body smell bad. This was unacceptable, and this was breaking point for Botan: she had accepted the pains of hunger, dehydration, suppressed body movements, fatigue and sweating, but she drew the line at being left smelling like something out of a demon world garbage dump. Hiei obviously had some sort of secret for not sweating, and she was even willing to bet that he did not smell like she did, and she had to know what it was.

Botan got to her feet and started towards Hiei, her bared, sweat-soaked feet slapping against the hot, dry rock as she marched determinedly towards the slumbering fire demon, her jaw set and her eyes ablaze. However she stopped, barely a few steps short of him, as Hiei groaned and twitched where he lay. Caught off-guard by his actions she hesitated where she had stopped, blinking curiously down at him. His face, which had been uncharacteristically peaceful and gentle in his sleeping state, was suddenly contorted, almost painfully, and she could see the sinews in his arms and shoulders twitching as his hands clenched and unclenched into fists.

Was he dreaming?

Botan tip-toed the last few steps towards him and then gently and quietly knelt down by his head, moving her hands to her forehead and wiping back her sweat-drenched hair. Again he groaned, his lips quivering and affording her brief flashes of his teeth. One of his legs jerked and his head whipped over in her direction, and she was barely able to contain a gasp of shock. He mumbled out something incoherent and then his head moved back to its original position and his back arched. Whatever he was dreaming about, Botan thought, it was clearly not something pleasant. What sort of dreams did demons have, she wondered?

"Yukina…"

Botan's eyes doubled in size and locked onto Hiei's partially open mouth. Who was Yukina? That was a woman's name!

"No…" he groaned, his whole body writhing.

Botan began to feel sorry for Hiei. He looked tortured, and it seemed as though he felt that way because of "Yukina" – whoever or whatever she was – and that made him seem a little less cold and untouchable in Botan's eyes. She hated to see anyone in pain – especially the emotional kind – and she wanted to calm him. No matter how evil he was, he was – according to her notebook – just a delinquent who had problems with his mother. Sort of like Yusuke, Botan mused. And Yusuke had certainly proven himself to be something more than spirit world had thought him to be before he had jumped in front of that car, so perhaps it could be the same with Hiei.

"Yukina!" he yelled suddenly, sitting up abruptly.

Botan froze, staring at him in disbelief and confusion: his eyes were wide and staring straight ahead of him and his chest and shoulders were heaving, his deep breathing audible even to her ears, but she was not really sure that he was awake yet. He let out a longer, slower breath and lifted one hand to his forehead, and she clearly saw the rise and fall of his throat as he swallowed hard. He then slowly turned his head towards her, his eyebrows rising up beneath his bandana as his eyes found hers. Still a little taken aback by what she had just witnessed, Botan remained knelt at his side, only starting to realise her predicament when the red eyes watching her began to travel lower. She slowly lowered her head to see what he was looking at, shrieking in horror as she saw that she was still stripped to her underwear, and due to her sweating profusely the garments had become wet and slightly translucent.

Her head snapped up and she fixed her eyes onto Hiei, who was staring unashamedly at her chest. She made a noise of indignation and slapped a hand at one side of his face as hard as she could. As her hand collided with his cheek one of his eyes twitched slightly, but otherwise he did not respond in the slightest. Botan's hand felt like it had smacked into a brick wall, and she hastily clutched it to her chest, a throbbing pain passing up the length of her arm – she knew that the power and physical strength differences between herself and Hiei were great, but she had never expected them to be quite so insurmountable.

"Stop it!" she cried.

One corner of Hiei's mouth curled upwards slightly, but otherwise he did not respond to her demand. She growled angrily and grabbed his bandana with both hands, tugging it down over his eyes. Doing so exposed his jagan eye, which started to open in response – could he see out of that thing like a normal eye, she wondered? It was not a chance worth taking, she decided, and so she quickly yanked the bandana up again to cover his third eye, inadvertently uncovering his eyes again. She wailed in frustration and grabbed the top of the bandana in one hand to hold it over his jagan eye whilst stretching it down over his normal eyes with her other hand. Once she was satisfied that she had covered all three of his eyes she scrambled to her feet, her head buzzing from the suddenness of her movements. The air was so hot that everything around her looked blurred and as though she was looking at it under a layer of water. She was aiming for the point where she had discarded her clothes, and as she focused on them she saw them blur and warp out of proportion before disappearing from her view altogether.

**

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Hiei was almost glad when the idiot ferry girl arranged his bandana over all three of his eyes, because, by blocking his view of her scantily-clad form, she had allowed him to finally gain a little more control over his senses. He had been having that dream about his jagan implant operation again, about the pain he had suffered for the many hours it had taken Shigure to perform the operation and the agony he had felt for so long afterwards with his powers drained and his body weakened, and then what had followed his initial recovery: his visit to the ice village, where he had found his mother's grave and learned that he had a twin sister, Yukina. He often had that dream, but awakening from it to find himself in the lava pit of Maze Castle had been a little perplexing, as he had momentarily forgotten where he was, and when he had found that frivolous ferry girl knelt at his side in nothing more than her pure white and virtually transparent underwear, her body glistening with sweat and her normally powder blue hair several shades darker and clinging to the sides of her face and neck, he had been momentarily overtaken by confusion.

Just what the hell had she been doing? Why had she taken off most of her clothes and been knelt over him while he was sleeping?

In that moment, Hiei reluctantly admitted to himself that he knew absolutely nothing about the workings of the female mind, and so the workings of a ferry-girl-come-human female mind really was a complex conundrum he would never be able to fathom. Not that he even wanted to fathom how that girl's mind worked.

He sighed and rearranged his bandana back into its rightful position around his forehead, once more exposing his eyes and bringing that idiot ferry girl back into his sights. She was lying in an ungracious pile of splayed limbs and wet blue hair a short distance from where he was sat, apparently passed out. Hiei did not know anything about the limitations or functions of a human body – beyond the basics – and so he could only guess at why she was now unconscious. Was it dehydration? Was it hunger? Was it the heat? Or was she just the sort of stupid girl who tried to snuggle up to a demon in her underwear and then swooned dramatically when said demon woke up and caught her in the act?

The heat in the lava pit was only mildly uncomfortable for Hiei, and only after spending such a long time there had he started to notice it. He knew that other demons – demons who did not have fire abilities or a high resistance to high temperatures – would probably sweat and suffer in such conditions, especially if they were made to endure them for longer than half an hour, so for a miserable ferry girl in the body of a weak human, the heat probably was too much to bear. She had sweated (a lot) and so she was probably dehydrated too, and possibly even hungry, as her salt levels would be low. And she was probably too stupid to know any of those things, since she was both unaccustomed to possessing a physical body with physical needs and she was – quite obviously – an imbecile.

Hiei's instinctive reaction was to leave her to suffer, since that was the best way for her to learn from her many, many mistakes, but unfortunately he knew that he could not continue without her, as traversing the lava pit on foot was now an impossible task, and he was going to need her to fly him across, which she could only do if she was conscious and strong enough to fetch her stick.

And that meant he was going to have to help her.

Hiei shuddered involuntarily. The last thing he needed was a dependent hanging around him and relying on him all the time. He had never relied on anyone else himself – only ever forming alliances when absolutely necessary to help him achieve his goals – and he had certainly never had or wanted anyone relying on him, least of all this much. He reluctantly got to his feet and approached the girl, standing over her for some time before poking one of her shoulders with the toe of his boot. Her body moved with his pushes, but she did not make a sound or respond, even to tense herself against the contact. When several jabs did nothing to stir her he hooked his foot under her shoulder and flipped her over onto her back. His task was less than successful, as her upper body did move over to face upwards, but her hips only turned halfway, her long legs still twisted over at one side of her body.

"Hey," he said. "Hey!"

When she still did not respond Hiei decided that he would have to – yet again – tend to her like some sort of pet, which was a hassle he could well do without. But, since he needed to be able to use her flying abilities and because of her suitability as a hostage for the negotiations he intended to ultimately hold with spirit world concerning the barrier around the city, he obligingly started back through the castle, where – without the girl to fly him across the ravine – he had to climb down the tower, cross a quagmire of demolition, climb back up to the remainder of the walkway and then back down through the stone room Kurama had fought Genbu in to finally reach the main castle doors.

He hoped the witch at least appreciated what he was doing for her.

**

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**

When Hiei eventually got back to the lava pit with the flask of water and food he had fetched for the girl, he found her still in the same position he had left her in and still very much unconscious. He had taken the liberty of feeding and watering himself before his return, and, during his awkward journey back to her, he had formulated a tasty plan about throwing the water he had collected over the girl's body to wake her up. He placed down the bag of food at her side and began uncorking the flask, only stopping from following through with his plan when he noticed her scattered clothing. He had noticed it lying there before, of course, but this time he saw something he had not noticed the first time around: there was some sort of metallic, wired device lying in tatters by her pants.

Hiei glanced down at the girl to confirm that she was still unconscious before crossing over to her abandoned clothing and kicking it about experimentally. After a few careless kicks, he discovered that the broken little gadget was not the only item in her possession: she also had a cheap little whistle, a small eyeglass, some sort of watch that looked like it needed a battery, some pointless stickers and a very unusual gold ring. Hiei did not care for any of the other worthless items she had been hoarding, but the gold ring looked like it might be worth something, either on the black market in demon world or as another ransom item spirit world would pay handsomely to get back, so he took it, concealing it in his coat pocket before moving back over to the girl and commencing to pour the contents of the flask over her face.

At first she barely flinched, apparently too far gone to respond to a small intrusion, but as Hiei tilted the flask higher, increasing the volume of water pouring onto her, she screwed up her face and groaned, finally rousing from her deep sleep. She opened her mouth – probably to speak – and promptly began to choke as she breathed in a mouthful of the water. As she coughed and spluttered and tried to roll out from under the cascading water, Hiei continued pouring it over her, watching her blankly as he waited for her to do something productive. Eventually she managed to open her eyes and she swatted a hand at the flask, almost managing to hit it. Hiei turned it over again, holding it upright to cease his assault, deciding that she would probably need what little was left to drink.

"Where am I?" she moaned, looking about herself. "It's so hot! What's happening?"

"Maze Castle, you're beside a pit of lava and you swooned like a silly little girl," Hiei told her. "Drink this."

He thrust his hand down towards her, presenting the flask to her. She looked down at it for a long time before slowly lifting large, light eyes to his face questioningly and with a hint of gratitude.

"You were right about one thing: your human body is very inefficient at processing liquids," he said. "Drink this, eat that and then fetch your broom, we have to get to the other side of this cavern."

She nodded and took the flask from him, clutching it in both hands and then greedily drinking down the contents. She looked a little angered when she realised that there was little water to be had, but she soon forgot about the water, the flask and even the bag of food Hiei had collected for her as she seemed to suddenly notice that she was stripped to her underwear. She stared down at herself, her arms spread out at her sides and her legs arranged loosely in front of her where she sat, her eyes huge with disbelief. Was she really that stupid? Could she honestly not remember that she had taken her clothes off before she had passed out?

She screamed and launched herself in the direction of her discarded clothing, stumbling and falling halfway there as she was apparently still quite weakened. She crawled the remainder of the way, making stupid little noises that could have been the start of hysteria as she grabbed up her vest and hurriedly pulled it back on – though since it was white, wet and clinging to her skin it really did not do anything to restore any of her dignity. She clawed redundantly at her pants and jacket before finally settling for picking up her pants and grabbing at a nearby wall of rock, pulling herself upright against it. She then began trying to force her wet and heat-swollen legs back into her very tight pants, getting them barely halfway up before sliding down the wall of rock into a sitting position and covering her face with her hands.

Unlike the ferry girl, Hiei did not have a handy little guidebook instructing him on the most efficient way to slap a hysterical woman to guarantee that she would be silent, but he doubted that such a book even existed: and even if it did, he would never have bothered reading it anyway. His instinct was to go over to her, grab her, and then shake her into silence, but he did not want to seriously injure her – at least not until she had taken him across the lava pit and expired her usefulness.

"Why am I here?" she wailed.

Hiei paused. Had she taken his earlier suggestion that she should contemplate her miserable existence seriously? And – worse still – was she now going to vocalise her every thought on the matter?

"Why did I come here?" she sobbed. "Why did I follow you here? You're not even grateful! And now I'm stuck here! I probably won't even be allowed to ever go back to spirit world, because the taint of demon world has… Tainted me!"

Hiei rolled his eyes. He really only had two options to silence her, he supposed. He could kill her or he could reason with her. One was his idea of bliss, the other his worst nightmare realised. But another glance at the sprawling lava pit reminded him that he would never make it up to the living quarters at the top of the tower where the Four Saint Beasts had lived without her aid, and so his only option left was to try to reason with her.

"I just want to go back to collecting souls!" she cried. "I never even wanted to be assistant to the spirit detective! Lord Koenma only made me do it because Yusuke already knew me and he thought it made more sense to send in somebody Yusuke was comfortable with! And the only reason Yusuke knew me was because I collected his soul when he died, and he wasn't even supposed to die, the big idiot! And I wasn't even supposed to collect his soul, it was supposed to be Ayame, but she got delayed helping a lost soul and I only agreed to go get Yusuke for her as a favour! It's not fair!"

Apparently she was going to vocalise her entire life story.

"I just want to go home!" she continued. "I came here because I was trying to help you, and you're so ungrateful, and so mean to me! I hate you, Hiei!"

She bent her legs up and buried her face into her knees, hugging her arms around her half-dressed shins. She was a pitiful sight – Hiei had seen starving wretches in the forest of fools with more dignity – and she seemed to be getting worse by the second. He decided that he had to do something to snap her out of her depression, and so he spent a few seconds racking his brain for any relevant information he could find. He thought about the small amount he had learned about humans during his time in the living world, he thought about the even smaller amount he had learned about women after the string of one night stands he had enjoyed before becoming trapped in the living world and he thought about the minute amount he had learned about spirit world and its inhabitants.

Finally, combining all three, tiny, pieces of knowledge inside his head, Hiei came up with a solution.

"Hey, you, woman!" he yelled, grabbing a hard fruit from the bag of food he had gathered. "Shut-up, get up and stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself!"

He hurled the fruit at her head, where it made a nice clunking sound on impact. She yelped and ducked away at first, but a moment later her head snapped up and she fixed her eyes onto him angrily.

"What was that for?" she yelled.

"I did it to stop you crying," he replied.

She growled – a pathetic sound from a creature like her – and got to her feet, tugging at her pants until she finally had them pulled fully up. She stepped into her boots and put on her jacket, but she did not bother closing it, instead leaving it flapping open. She then marched up to him, her face red and her eyes positively glowing with rage.

"Throwing objects at a lady's head is not the correct way to make her stop crying, you insensitive little monster!" she snarled.

He shrugged.

"It worked, didn't it?" he said.

"No it did not work!" she argued.

"Yes it did," he insisted. "You stopped crying and feeling sorry for yourself, didn't you?"

She paused, her eyes looking upwards in thought for a moment before she growled and shook her head, her sweat-soaked ponytail slapping at the sides of her face.

"You've completely missed the point!" she said.

"Hn, not really," he scoffed. "I made you stop crying and feeling sorry for yourself just like that."

He snapped his fingers to illustrate his point about how quickly she had snapped out of her misery.

"Maybe I have stopped crying and feeling sorry for myself," she said tightly. "But now I just feel really angry towards you and like I hate you even more than before!"

"You say that like you expect me to care what you feel about me," he flatly replied.

She growled and began grinding her teeth in a most unattractive manner.

"Get your broom and fly me over there," he ordered her, pointing at the opening in the rock-face at the other side of the pit of lava.

"Why can't you ask me instead of ordering me around?" she moaned.

"Are you going to start crying again?" he asked, picking up the bag of food.

She eyed the bag nervously before squaring her jaw and thinning her eyes to glare at him, the extent of her hatred becoming increasingly obvious.

"I'm going to take you over there," she said, her oar appearing in her hand very abruptly. "But then you are going to help me find a way out of this city."

Hiei rarely struck bargains with anyone, and he was certainly not going to come to an agreement with a mere ferry girl. However, she did not seem to be expecting an answer from him as she clambered onto her oar – with far less finesse than usual – and turned her head from him abruptly. Simply feeling glad that she was not going to force him into agreeing with her, he hopped up onto the blade of her oar and allowed her to fly him over the lava.

At first, the flight felt no different than the one she had taken him on outside of the castle; but, very quickly, the oar began to shudder and their flight-path became a bit erratic as they dipped up and down and swayed from side to side. Hiei growled at the back of her head, readying himself to argue with her, as he was almost sure that she was deliberately being awkward: but when he saw that she was blinking heavily and looked like she might pass out again he quickly stopped, his anger turning into anxiety. If she passed out, would her oar disappear? Hiei had never feared death itself, but he was positively terrified of suffering an undignified death, and falling from a ferry girl's oar into a pit of lava was about the most undignified form of death he could think of.

"Hey, stay awake!" he snapped, poking at her shoulder.

"I feel sick…" she moaned quietly.

"You'll kill us both if you don't pull yourself together!" he reminded her.

"…So hot…"

"Hey!"

Hiei grabbed a handful of the sweat-soaked blue hair hanging from the back of her head to stop her head from lolling forwards.

"Stop being so mean to me!" she moaned, turning her head to glare up at him from the corner of her eye.

Seeing a spark of anger in her eyes and feeling them distinctly rise and straighten in the air, Hiei realised what he had to do to get the girl to bend to his whim.

"I think I know why spirit world let you play with the detective," he said, grinning darkly at her. "You were the most worthless ferry girl in all of spirit world, and because they couldn't kill you, they sent you out to babysit their temperamental spirit detective!"

"That's not true!" she snapped.

Hiei grinned and the ferry girl began to sneer at him. She was quite simple and straightforward for a woman, he thought to himself. Getting what he wanted out of her was going to be easier than burning the eyebrows off of a baby,

"Obviously spirit world don't take you seriously," he continued. "I've never seen a blue-haired, pink-eyed ferry girl before."

She yelped indignantly and Hiei began to feel the warm air rushing past his ears fast enough to unsettle his hair.

"Was Enma drunk when he made you, woman?" he asked, his grin widening. "I thought ferry girls were supposed to be pretty, but it looks like you were made up of all the left over bits from the other ferry girls. It looks like your face was made from all the excess elbow skin!"

Hiei stumbled slightly as he hit the ground after the girl banished her oar in the blink of an eye. She landed only slightly more gracefully than he had, but she was standing to her fullest height, her back stiff and straight, her jaw squared, her nostrils flared and her eyes were narrowed and burning with anger. She marched up to him, her stupid boots clacking all the way. She looked like she was about to try to slap him again, and Hiei did not even care if she did: her weakness amused him. She had taken him across the lava, what she did now was inconsequential.

"So I'm a bag-faced, ugly, worthless ferry girl?" she asked.

Hiei smiled sarcastically at her.

"I see," she said, nodding her head slowly. "Only suitable for babysitting, was that what you said?"

"Hn," Hiei responded, letting his smirk turn into a fanged grin.

"Well then how appropriate that I've been left babysitting a little wretch like you," she haughtily replied.

"Nice rebuttal, ferry girl," he dryly replied.

She sneered and then swiped a hand at him. He did nothing to respond, expecting to hear her knuckles cracking against his cheek: but for some reason, she had not been aiming for his cheek. Hiei's smirk drooped as he felt her take hold of one of his hands in hers, so taken aback by her actions that he let her lift his hand up in front of his face. He glanced back and forth between her angered face and her fingers as they manipulated his hand into a fist.

"Do you see this, Hiei?" she said, turning his hand around and reaching her other hand over to lift his thumb up from his fist.

"Your point?" he spat impatiently.

Her eyes changed and she began to smirk in an almost condescending fashion. Hiei despised anyone looking down on him, he was certainly not about to tolerate such behaviour from a mere ferry girl.

"Everybody knows that a man's penis is three times the length of his thumb," she said quietly, before pointedly staring at his thumb.

Hiei stared at his thumb upon her words, his mind going blank.

"King Enma may have been "drunk" when he made me," she said, releasing his head. "But apparently whoever made you was having a laugh."

Hiei opened his mouth to argue, but he found his attention drifting back to his thumbs, which he had subconsciously extended on both hands.

"Never mind Hiei," the woman said with a sigh. "You know how the old saying goes – and I know you hate old sayings, but maybe this one will make you feel a little better: short and thick gets in quick and satisfies the ladies."

Hiei slowly lifted his head, finding the sweating, stinking, idiotic ferry girl standing in front of him smiling at him as though she had just said something delightful and insightful.

"Would you like to cry on my shoulder now?" she asked sweetly.

He yelled out the most offensive curse he could think of, but apparently the girl was unaffected as she giggled and skipped off, making her way along the tunnel out of the lava pit. He growled with every breath, annoyed to find that the lava pit had not made him sweat, but that stupid woman had.

"I know the goal," he quietly reminded himself. "Take over the city, torture the girl, and convince spirit world to take the barrier down."

He repeated his mantra over and over inside his head, but as he watched the blue-haired idiot noisily clomping along the tunnel ahead of him he could not calm himself.

"Short and thick…" he growled under his breath. "I'll show that bitch…"

**

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**

**Next Chapter: **The residents of the CGA are celebrating a new leader – but it's not Hiei. Botan does something that stuns Hiei, Yusuke learns that Kurama is his new "assistant" and Botan invites Hiei to indulge in one of her favourite hobbies with her, but it doesn't quite go as she expected.** Chapter 7 – Keep Me From Falling**

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**A/N:** I woke Yusuke up earlier in this fic than the 3 days he was meant to have been out for in the original, and that was partly unintentional, I'll admit, but I don't want to drag this out trying to fill in 2 more days of Hiei and Botan milling around Maze Castle.

I will try to get as much of this posted before Monday as I can, and after that I'm travelling again, so I won't be updating until about Thursday or Friday. (Which day I post again depends on how my trip goes, I'm not travelling alone this time, I suspect there will be much pillow fighting in the corridors of hotels and breadstick wars in the 24-hour supermarket to consume my time, but I'll probably get some writing done on the plane anyway!)


	7. Keep Me From Falling

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Recap:** Hiei and Botan still failed to get along, Hiei stole Botan's Concentration Ring and Botan said something to Hiei that she is now so totally going to regret.

**

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**Chapter 7: Keep Me From Falling**

Botan had been collecting souls for many a century, and she had witnessed all manners of festivals in both the human and spirit worlds: but nothing from her memories was as loud, colourful or physical as what was going on outside the walls of Maze Castle. After walking endless corridors in various states of disrepair, she and Hiei had eventually reached a long, winding, fragmented staircase up the tallest turret of the enormous tower. She had flown up on her oar, leaving Hiei to jump and curse his way up over the broken parts of stairs and rubble. She had been a little worried that, when they reached the top of the turret, Hiei might turn on her after her questioning the integrity of his manhood back in the lava pit, but when they had reached their destination, both had become distracted from everything that had been said and done en route as they found what looked like the entire population of the city of ghosts and apparitions throwing some sort of strange celebration beyond the Gate of Betrayal.

"What are they doing?" Botan asked.

She had muttered the question, an accidental vocalisation of her primary thought, but Hiei had apparently heard her clearly and he answered the question.

"They're celebrating the new ruler of their city taking up residence here," he said quietly.

"Oh," Botan said, turning and running her eyes over Hiei. "I see. Well, congratulations, I suppose."

"Hn, idiot," Hiei sighed. "I'm not the one they're worshipping."

"But…" Botan began, feeling suddenly flummoxed. "If it's not…? Then who…? How…?"

"Apparently you did something to win their favour," Hiei replied, his bitterness evident. "They're celebrating you as the new leader of this city – what a farce! The rulers of demon world achieve their status through brute strength and war! What have you ever done that was strong or dominant?"

"I killed all the man-eating ghouls with one blast of my spirit gun!" Botan said, her face brightening as the memory recurred to her.

"What?"

"I killed them all with one blast. It was mightily impressive, even if I do say so myself!"

Hiei's face dropped.

"You have the ability to kill en masse with one energy blast?" he asked quietly. "Was that you I felt when…? How can you possibly have that sort of power?"

"Oh it's a little trick!" Botan replied. "I can only do it once a day, and not without my magical Concentration Ring!"

Botan began fumbling in her pockets for the ring to show Hiei what she meant, silently wondering why a strange look had passed over his face when she had mentioned the famous spirit detective tool.

"Never mind about that," he muttered. "This is absurd. You can't rule this city. You're weak, you're an idiot and you're not even a demon!"

"Well…" Botan began, abandoning her search for the Concentration Ring. "Maybe if you're a good boy, I'll let you have the title of–"

"I am not a child!" Hiei cut her off. "Stop talking down to me!"

"Well maybe if you didn't act like a child I wouldn't need to treat you like one all the time!"

"You are infinitely more immature than I am!"

"You're more argumentative, and that's very immature!"

"Hn, that's debatable, because I would just as soon not hear your voice as argue with you any more! In fact, maybe I'll cut off your tongue – you're in a human body, it should hurt really badly for you. I like the sight of blood spurting out of a freshly cut wound, I revel in the stench of it, it's intoxicating, but most of all I'm going to enjoy the strangled screams you make when you're writhing in agony, no longer in possession of a tongue to form words and drowning in your own blood as it floods your throat!"

Botan had been willing to dismiss Hiei's talk as mere scaremongering, but when he drew out his sword partway through his oration and his eyes started to take on a maniacal look, she was not so sure. Maybe he would kill her. Maybe, after centuries of dealing with humans dealing with death, she was about to learn first-hand how they had felt when she had appeared before them. She still did not really know what would become of her soul if she died in the demon city – her most optimistic idea was that death would send her soul back to spirit world, and her most pessimistic idea was that death would condemn her to an eternity in demon world. Her middling thoughts involved erasure from existence and the irksome idea that if ferry girls could come to the city of ghosts and apparitions to collect her soul, why had none of them come to check on her yet?

She began looking about herself, quickly noticing that, at the peak of the turret of Maze Castle, they were in the remains of some sort of throne room, and there were only two exits: the damaged doorway leading back to the winding staircase or out one of the blasted open sections of wall. Her hand twitched at her side instinctively as the idea about summoning her oar and evacuating the castle played on her mind. She only had two reasons for having followed Hiei as far as she had: first of all, she felt obliged to keep track of his movements as he was an escaped prisoner and she had originally followed him to take him back to spirit world and secondly she was hoping that he might know or be able to find a way out of the city. For those reasons she did not actually summon her oar, but she kept her hand poised and ready to just in case.

"Your over-zealous detective has almost ruined my plans," he said, pointing his sword at something hanging on a remaining section of wall. "You should know, ferry girl, that as soon as have that thing operational, your torture will begin."

Botan turned her head to look at the wall for as long as she dared take her eyes off of Hiei. There was a damaged, ornate golden frame hanging there, which surrounded a shattered and fragmented oval of glass. It looked like it ought to be a giant mirror, but the glass was not reflective, and there was some sort of control box on the ground beneath it, connected to the underside of the frame by a series of cables. It almost looked a little like the television screen Koenma used to watch key events in the other two worlds, but Botan doubted such a device would exist in demon world, least of all one that was easily four times the size of the one Lord Koenma himself owned.

"Hn, those fools celebrating your leadership now will soon be celebrating a new ruler of their city," Hiei said darkly.

Botan turned back to him, finding him still wearing that borderline deranged look on his face. He started towards the broken frame on the wall, one hand still firmly clutched around his sword and his head tilted back slightly, looking up at the broken glass. Botan watched him pass her, vaguely noticing that he was heading straight towards a gaping hole in the floor. She assumed that he had noticed it – he was very lithe and very observant, and so falling through a hole in the floor and plummeting to his death did not seem like the sort of fate that could befall him – and so she did not bother warning him about it.

She shortly regretted her silence though when Hiei blindly walked directly up to the hole and put a foot into the air in the apparent assumption that his next step would land on solid ground.

"Hiei, look out!" she cried.

Hiei completely ignored her – probably thinking that she was being a hysterical fool again after her little outburst back in the lava pit – and his foot came down inside the hole, his other foot tipping by the edge of the floor and his arms suddenly coming out at his sides in an attempt to hold his balance. Not waiting to see if he could recover himself from a fall, Botan ran at him and grabbed his coat, tugging him back onto solid floor. As he only had one foot barely on solid ground when she had started pulling him, the balance of Hiei's weight tipped abruptly backwards, and, having not expected him to be quite so heavy, Botan got caught in the momentum of him reversing direction and she fell backwards herself, her back landing hard on the stone floor and Hiei's back landing on top of her a second later.

Hiei did not move to get up as quickly as Botan had expected him to, but she did not really care, as she found herself suddenly unable to breathe. Had he just killed her? And if so, how? And why? She had only been trying to save his life, and this was how he thanked her? There was a dull pain in her chest and upper back, and she could feel her head starting to buzz as her lungs continued to fail her. Hiei eventually moved, but, rather than getting off of her, he turned himself over, straddling her hips with his knees and pressing his hands to the floor on either side of her head. She saw his mouth move, but as her ears were starting to fill with a dull noise, she could not hear what he said at first.

"–t need you to keep me from falling!"

Botan finally found herself breathing again, though her breaths were shallow and uneven and her ribs ached, the whining sound in her ears faded and, after a few seconds of blurring and greying slightly, her vision stabilised.

"What are you doing?" she gasped, becoming suddenly aware of the fact that she was on her back on the ground and Hiei was holding her down in that position.

"You're an idiot!" he snapped back.

He looked angry.

"You would have fallen through that hole!" she pointed out.

"Hn, not likely!" he argued. "I have superior skills of speed and balance, gravity cannot defeat me! I didn't need you pulling at my clothes and screeching at me like a crazed harpy!"

"I saved your life!" Botan cried.

"No you didn't!" Hiei sneered back.

His face distinctly twitched and then Botan saw something she never had on the fire demon before: his expression visibly softened into an almost gentle look.

"I don't understand," he said quietly. "I just told you that I intend to torture you for my own pleasure and to cause pain and suffering to your people. After hearing that, why would you want to help with anything? Wouldn't it have been easier for you to let me die?"

"I couldn't let you die!" she protested.

"But… Why would you care? I don't understand."

"I was acting on instinct."

"Your instincts tell you to save the life of a demon? You're from spirit world, you should despise and fear me, and eradicating me should be your primary objective! And if that really was you who let off that energy blast earlier, you definitely have the strength to… I… I just don't understand you at all, woman."

Botan smiled, propping herself up onto her elbows.

"My name's Botan," she told him.

His face did not change as though he had not even heard her. He simply continued to look down at her with the same strangely gentle look on his face. She could still see the hint of confusion in his deep red eyes, the suggestion of inner conflict in the slightly askew angle of his eyebrows and the unspoken questions he seemed unable to vocalise lingering by his slightly open mouth. He looked strangely approachable with that look on his face, she thought. He almost looked likeable. He almost looked human.

Actually, he looked attractive.

Botan gulped audibly as she once more became aware of the fact that she was on the ground with an unpredictable, mind-reading demon on top of her, and now, just to make her situation even worse, she had just thought something that was illogical, inexplicable and potentially inexcusable if Hiei had managed to read her mind in that moment.

Things in Maze Castle just kept getting weirder.

**

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Kurama smiled patiently at the two teenage boys sat across the table from him. He was waiting for them to stop staring at him with such open-mouthed looks of confusion and near-repulsion, but he was beginning to think that they were stuck in some sort of trance, and that they would not awaken unless he did something shortly.

"Another round of tea?" he offered, in the hope of awakening them from their stupor.

"Wait…" Yusuke said, putting a hand over his long-cold mug. "Are you serious?"

Kurama smiled again.

"It's just a provisional measure," he said gently. "Koenma asked me if I would take over from Botan temporarily until he has been able to recover her from the city of ghosts and apparitions."

"So somebody is gonna get her out of there, right?" Kuwabara asked.

Kurama did not bother answering him, mostly because he did not really know how to: Koenma had not made it clear whether or not spirit world were going to continue their initial efforts to retrieve Botan from the demon city.

"And meantime you're my new assistant?" Yusuke asked.

"Yes, that's correct," Kurama replied.

"…Huh…"

Yusuke slowly nodded his head.

"So you're here to help me out when I need you to, right?" he asked, a scheming smile starting to appear on his face.

Sensing that something unsavoury was about to follow Kurama straightened out his features.

"Within reason, obviously," he answered.

"Well great!" Yusuke said.

"What?" Kuwabara echoed. "How can you say that, Urameshi? What about poor, lovely Botan? She's still stuck in that dirty demon city with all those nasty demons – oh, uh, no offence Kurama – you ought to be thinking about a way to rescue her!"

"I am thinking about a way to rescue her, knucklehead!" Yusuke sternly answered him. "But until we can come up with a plan and find a way back to the city of ghosts and apparitions, having Kurama as an assistant isn't so bad."

"You'd rather have a part-demon boy who likes flowers working for you than a beautiful girl?" Kuwabara asked in a low voice.

Yusuke gave him a warning glare before turning to Kurama and breaking into a smile again.

"I've got some chores I need to do," he said. "But you can take care of that as my assistant, right?"

Kurama sighed quietly.

"I'm not your personal assistant, Yusuke," he pointed out. "Just your guide for any missions Koenma may issue to you between now and Botan's return."

Yusuke laid an arm on the table and leaned forwards, bringing his face closer to Kurama's.

"Is that little brat likely to issue me any missions between now and Botan's return?" he asked quietly.

"I believe so," Kurama honestly replied.

"Like what?" Yusuke asked.

"Like rescuing Botan!" Kuwabara cut in.

"The barrier around the city of ghosts and apparitions is impregnable," Kurama reminded him. "Only King Enma's elite can create an opening in it, and without such an opening, there is no way to get anyone in or out of the city. I'm afraid that, until those elite officers are free to create such a breach, our hands are tied."

"I still think we should storm Koenma's office and demand that he tries harder to get Botan back," Yusuke said.

"I suspect you will have much larger concerns looming on your horizon before long," Kurama said.

"Like what?" Yusuke asked.

"I believe Koenma's agents are currently investigating something, and he will shortly need your assistance on another case."

Yusuke sighed and Kuwabara screwed up his face.

"Could you be any more cryptic and vague?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," Kurama replied. "I don't know any more myself. And even if I did, I would not be at liberty to divulge such information, even to the spirit detective himself, so I certainly would not discuss the details with you, Kuwabara."

"The big idiot makes a good point, fox boy," Yusuke said.

"Hey!" Kuwabara protested.

"If you know more, you really ought to tell us already," Yusuke continued. "It's not like you're a sworn-in spirit world employee like Botan, you don't have to worry about Koenma making your life hell if you say something he asked you not to."

"I was telling the truth," Kurama insisted. "I know no more about what Koenma is planning other than what I have already told you: his agents are investigating something, and the end result of those investigations will probably be a requirement for you to go on another mission."

"What sort of mission?" Yusuke asked.

Kurama hesitated long enough to maintain his composure before continuing.

"Like I already said, I don't know," he said as patiently as he could.

Yusuke turned to Kuwabara.

"I say you should go to spirit world and tell this "Koenma" guy to let us back into the city of ghosts and apparitions," Kuwabara said.

"For once Kuwabara, I totally agree with you," Yusuke replied.

And with that they both pushed back their chairs and stood up abruptly, apparently intent on charging out of the tea room and making their way to spirit world: but before the had fully straightened up they dissolved into fits of groaning and twitching, slowly lowering back down to their seats.

"Again, human bodies unaccustomed to expending large quantities of spirit energy in short, sudden spurts need time to recover," Kurama reminded them. "More tea?"

Yusuke and Kuwabara glared at him from across the table, apparently both displeased but both also aware that neither of them was in a fit state to make the journey to the demon city, least of all to enter into combat again.

**

* * *

**

Hiei had long ago accepted that he would never understand humans, but the recent acts of selflessness he had witnessed from human creatures were making him almost wish that he did understand a little more about them. Between that big orange-haired clown donating his own life energy to the spirit detective to revive him from death and now the idiot ferry girl acting on "instinct" to save his life, he was feeling very confused.

Those sorts of acts were almost noble: and neither humans nor ferry girls disguised as humans were noble.

"H-Hiei?"

Hiei refocused his eyes onto the creature beneath him. She looked worried and a little afraid – and well she ought to, he thought. It was true that she had saved his life, but he would never concede to admit as much, and frankly he was not really that grateful, since it was arguable which was the most shameful: dying by blindly falling from a tower like an idiot or being rescued from such a death by an idiotic ferry girl. She was watching him almost expectantly, her chest once more steadily rising and falling. At first, when he had lost his balance and fallen onto her, he had inadvertently elbowed her in the gut and winded her, something that had seemed to confuse her, presumably because she was unaccustomed to the limitations of a living body. She had taken a little longer than was typical to recover, perhaps because she was weak or perhaps because she had panicked, and during those seconds where she had been unable to draw breath, her expression becoming increasingly alarmed, Hiei had felt his temper flare. He had not asked her to save him, and, had his elbow hit her a little higher up, he might have stopped her heart and killed her. And he had been wielding his sword when she had pulled him down, he could have accidentally skewered her.

And now he was almost indebted to her, which was truly the worst thing of all.

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

She actually looked like she cared what his answer might be.

"Hn," he said, shuffling back slightly and then rising to his feet.

He retrieved his sword and slid it back into its sheath, keeping his eyes on the ferry girl throughout. After a short pause she awkwardly stood up, turning to face him with an expectant look in her eyes. She looked more than a little absurd with her hair partly clinging to her face and partly starting to dry and frizz out at the sides of her head where it was not restrained in her ponytail, and her clothes were still damp and clinging to her in a very unflattering way. Hiei's eyes hesitated on her chest a little longer than even he thought was appropriate as he noticed that she was apparently cold in her wet clothes and away from the heat of the lava pit.

"What is this place?" she asked, tugging her jacket closed as though she had read his thoughts.

"What?" he echoed, lifting his eyes to hers.

"This place," she said, zipping up her jacket. "What is it? Was this where the Four Saint Beasts held court?"

Hiei hesitated, his initial thought being an image of the Four Saint Beasts residing over trials against criminals; but as he remembered who he was talking to, he realised her true meaning.

"Sort of," he recovered. "This was where Suzaku – the leader of their group – resided."

"And now this is where you intend to reside, as ruler of the city?" she asked.

"Yes," he muttered.

"…Or perhaps this is where I shall stay, since I'm the new ruler of this city…"

Hiei's eyes widened and his jaw clenched almost painfully. Seeing his reaction the girl smiled that sly smile she had used back in the lava put when she had made that crude remark about his genitals.

"But since you're homeless, maybe I'll let you stay here with me," she added. "If you promise to be polite, of course. And if you're a very good boy, I might even pass over ownership of this city to you when Lord Koenma opens another breach in the barrier for me to go back to spirit world."

Hiei curled his lip in disgust, exposing his teeth in what he hoped she would recognise as a threatening gesture.

"That rhythm is very catchy, isn't it?" she asked, peering over a broken down part of wall at the still celebrating hoards far below them. "It almost makes me want to dance."

"Hn."

Hiei had made the noise without intending to, his disgust for the girl temporarily overcoming his common sense and forcing a grunt out of him. She turned to him at the sound, looking curious at first, but then again she started to don that devious smile that he was starting to loathe with a passion. It was clear from the glint in her eyes that she was thinking about something, and that could only be bad news: a mind that simple and one-dimensional could only ever think up ridiculous, frivolous things that Hiei wanted no part of.

"Do you want to dance with me, Hiei?" she asked.

To his absolute horror, she extended a hand towards him, bent downwards at the wrist as though she expected him to kiss it.

"I do not dance, woman," he answered her.

She took a step towards him and before he could stop himself he slid half a step back from her, his reaction making her smile widen.

"Why don't you dance, Hiei?" she asked. "It is because you don't know how or because nobody's ever asked you to before?"

"I don't dance because dancing is a ritualistic practise indulged only by the weak and the stupid," he sternly replied.

"Ritualistic?" she asked, retracting her hand. "In my world – and in the human world – dancing is often a part of a ritual of some sort, but just as often it's something that people just do for fun."

"Fun?" Hiei echoed

"Yes Hiei, fun. It's that thing you do when you smile and enjoy yourself. You should try it some time, mister grumpy boots."

"Hn, ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous! I love dancing for fun! I do it all the time!"

"I bet you do…"

"I do! I dance with the other ferry girls, I dance with the ogres, I dance on my own in my room – I even dance with Lord Koenma sometimes… Though that always is a little tricky, since he is only the height of my knees…"

Hiei paused, realising that he had two options: he could continue to argue with the girl or he could toy with her the same way she was trying to toy with him. He preferred the first option, because he was of the belief that if he kept insulting her long enough, he might be able to make her cry again, and the sound of her crying was actually preferable to the sound of her talking, but he was still quite angry over her unwarranted accusations back in the lava pit, and he was starting to think that toying with her now might be a good way to seek revenge for that moment and to make her feel even worse than he did.

"So you've never danced with a man before?" he asked, trying to sound like he was actually interested in her reply.

"Well, apart from the ogres of spirit world…" she began, her eyes looking upwards as though she had to think to remember. "Not really, no…"

"I see," Hiei said, slowly crossing the room to join her. "So even though you have no experience with a man, you still thought to ask me to be your partner. That was bold. Especially for a ferry girl, addressing a demon."

He looked directly into her eyes as he stopped in front of her, letting a dark grin manifest onto his features as she faltered slightly under the intensity of his glare and his sudden closeness.

"It's just a bit of fun…" she said weakly.

""Fun", yes," he said. "I think I understand what you mean by "fun" now, ferry girl."

He clawed his hands in the air and started to reach for her, and at first she did no more than tense in anticipation of his touch. But, as he slid a step closer, her face changed suddenly and her hands shot up, slapping against his and halting his advance.

"You're not going to turn this into something horrible, are you?" she asked.

"I don't know what you mean," he lied.

"Dancing is supposed to be fun!" she insisted. "And if you really do want to dance with me, there could only be two possible reasons for that."

"Go on…"

"Either you want to dance for fun or you're doing it as part of one of your rituals you were just talking about… And you don't much seem like the sort of fellow who does anything for fun… Except maybe murder…"

"Make up your mind."

"I think this is part of a ritual."

"Maybe you're right."

"…Is it a "fry the ferry girl" ritual?"

"No."

"Oh."

Hiei waited briefly for the ferry girl to say something else and when she did not he slid closer to her again, untangling his fingers from hers and moving his hands to her waist. He gripped his fingers into her sides until he saw the distinct widening of her eyes and heard the sharp intake of breath that indicated he had reached the point of discomfort and was on the brink of causing her pain or leaving her bruised.

"You asked for this," he reminded her.

"No, not really, no," she whispered, shaking her head.

"Oh yes," he replied, pressing his fingers into her a little harder.

She had the protection of her vest and jacket from his grip, but it was minimal and of little consequence compared to his strength. She made a muffled squeaking sound and flinched, her body almost trying to double over against his grip, and her hands landed on his shoulders, initially as an instinct as she steadied herself. Taking advantage of her little slip, Hiei pushed her back and took a decisive step forwards. She quickly stumbled to keep up with him as he began manipulating her around the floor to the beat of the music drifting up to them from the city below.

At first she started sweating again and watched his feet, over-stepping every move he made as though she feared he might stand on her toes. As she was taller than him and had considerably longer legs, every time she took a long step back the rest of her body tried to follow and she was caught each time by Hiei's hands, still gripped into her sides. He saw her wince and heard her whimper a few times before she started to learn the length of his step and control her movements a little better.

"This isn't so bad…" she muttered, finally finding the courage to take her eyes off her feet.

She looked directly at Hiei then and he actually felt the muscles in her sides beneath his hands spasm as she flinched upon seeing the look on his face.

"You're um…" she began nervously. "Actually uh… You're quite good at this."

"Hn. I've never had any complaints before…"

Hiei smirked to himself as he saw her momentarily look confused and then slowly start to look afraid as she apparently finally realised what he had planned for her.

**

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**

Botan clutched her fists around the material of Hiei's coat at his shoulders. She had always enjoyed dancing and always considered it fun, but dancing with Hiei was neither enjoyable nor fun. In fact, dancing with Hiei was dangerous and terrifying. He was holding her far too tightly for comfort – though she did not dare complain – and the look in his eyes was the most sinister she had ever seen him wear. His movements were confident, rhythmic and flawless, but she no longer wanted to play the game. She wished that she had never asked him to dance. She had only done so because she had been sure that it would either infuriate or embarrass him, and instead she was now the one feeling uncomfortable.

She wanted him to stop and let her go, but at the same time she was terrified of him stopping because of what he might do next.

If this was a ritual dance for him, what was the ritual?

She wanted to ask but she did not want to know the answer. She wanted to stop but as long as they kept going she was reasonably safe. She wanted to look away from him but she could not tear her eyes from his.

She decided that the best way to deal with this situation was to approach it the same way she approached dealing with an awkward soul: by talking. A lot.

"So you've done this before?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied.

"I'm surprised," she said.

She really was surprised. Not because of his skill – even though he was actually surprisingly good – but because he had not seemed like the type who cared for dancing, ritualistically or otherwise, and he had claimed to dislike it at first.

"You're actually very good," she continued when he did not answer her. "You must have had lots of practise."

"Hn, more than you could possibly comprehend," he replied.

"Oh well that really is surprising!" she confessed. "Did you start young?"

"You could say that," he said.

"I see, so you've been doing this for a long time."

"Oh yes."

"And – if you don't mind me asking – would you do this with any girl or just a girl who was your… girlfriend?"

"I have standards. I wouldn't do this with just anyone."

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that–"

"But yes, I've had my fair share of partners over the years."

"Well, you're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

"Hn."

Botan tried to smile but she thought it might have come out as more of a grimace because, despite her best attempts to talk herself calm, she was even more nervous than before. She was starting to think that the longer they danced the closer they got to the point where they stopped dancing, and that was what was scaring her the most. What did he have planned for when they stopped?

"I never imagined you enjoying this sort of thing, Hiei," she said hurriedly, trying to talk over the sound of her own inner voice screaming at her fearfully. "Especially with a ferry girl like me."

"Well that's where you're wrong," he said in a low voice. "I've always enjoyed doing this."

"I… Um…"

"Though usually I prefer to do it… Horizontally."

Botan gasped as Hiei sharply tugged her hips against his and the look on his face became infinitely more sinister than it had been before – and she had thought it could not get any more sinister than it had been before. She had a worrying idea that she had talked herself into a terrible situation, an idea not helped by the feeling of the lower half of his body pressed hard enough against hers that she could feel every detail of it from the sinews in his thighs to what she hoped was his hip bones.

"You amuse me, ferry girl," he whispered.

Botan did not really care about he had just said as she was too distracted by the way his pupils had distinctly dilated as he addressed her. The evidence was mounting that she was in a potentially terrible situation and she did not know whether she ought to scream and try to fight or just close her eyes and pray for it to end as quickly as possible.

"Hn, "three times the length of your thumb"…" he continued. "You're so naïve. I'll show you three times the length of my thumb…"

Botan tensed as he leaned closer to her, only one coherent thought going through her mind: she was going to die, and by the worst way imaginable.

**

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**

""Death by Sex", yeah!"

"Excuse me?"

"Ugh, just ignore him."

Yusuke rolled his eyes and knocked his forehead against the bus window.

"Don't encourage him," he insisted. "He'll never stop if you do."

"I'm not sure I understand," Kurama replied, frowning slightly.

"He's listing his top five favourite Megallica songs," Yusuke explained. "Let him talk long enough and he'll tell you why they're so great."

""Rock the Mausoleum"!" Kuwabara said.

"Nobody cares, Kuwabara!" Yusuke yelled at him.

"Those are some fascinating song titles," Kurama commented.

"And "Boots"!" Kuwabara finished.

"I see," Kurama said. ""Burning, Looting, Raping, Shooting", "Masterbike", "Death by Sex", "Rock the Mausoleum" and "Boots"… I can see a trend, but for the last one: what is the song "Boots" about?"

Kuwabara's smile and joyful look vanished.

"Well uh, it's about boots," he said quietly.

"Your favourite song is about boots?" Yusuke asked, glaring at him incredulously.

"Really cool big black leather boots with metal toecaps, Urameshi!" Kuwabara corrected him.

"I see," Kurama said. "Can I ask then–"

"Please don't," Yusuke interrupted him. "I was serious before, if you encourage him, he will never shut-up. Megallica is his absolute favourite thing. Even more so than picking his feet."

"I just wondered what the lyrics of the song were," Kurama said. "And are the lyrics the attraction, or is it the melody? Or perhaps both?"

"I could sing it for you, if you want?" Kuwabara offered.

"Alright then," Kurama replied, ignoring the way Yusuke howled out in despair and smacked his head against the window again.

"Cool!" Kuwabara said. "Boots, boots, boots, boots, hey! Yeah! Boots, boots, boots, boots, Yeah! Boots, boots, boots, boots, hey! Yeah! Boots, boots–"

"Yes, I get the point," Kurama stopped him. "Quite the lyrical ingenuity. And that is your absolute favourite song?"

"Yeah!"

"And what about… Your fifth choice, "Burning, Looting, Raping, Shooting"? Is that every bit the intellectually stimulating delight?"

"Um… It goes: burning, looting, raping, shooting! We're burning, looting, raping, shooting! Yeah burning, looting, raping, shooting! Burning, looting, raping, shooting!"

"You demons are sick bastards," Yusuke growled at Kurama.

"I'm getting off at the next stop," Kurama whispered back.

"Me too," Yusuke agreed.

"…The next stop is where I live," Kurama pointed out.

"Oh, cool, I'll come and hang out at your place for a while then."

Kurama gave Yusuke a slightly sceptical look.

"Shouldn't you be getting home to see your own mother?" he asked.

"Nah!" Yusuke said, waving a hand dismissively in the air. "Drunk bitch won't notice if I'm gone all week! So what's the set up at your place: you got a spare room I could stay in tonight or would I be sharing your room?"

Kurama stood abruptly and started towards the front of the bus. His mother was a very conservative, kind, gentle sort of woman who he had – since the day she had injured herself to save him from hurt – sought to protect from any and all corrupting influences. As the bus drew to a halt, Kurama turned and looked back to see Kuwabara still sitting at the back of the bus where they had left him, singing and beating out a rhythm against the bus window, and Yusuke immediately behind him, unwrapping a new packet of Cupid super heavy cigarettes – when had he even had the chance to buy those?

"I have school tomorrow morning," he reminded Yusuke as he followed him off the bus.

"I don't," Yusuke reminded him.

"My mother works, the apartment will be empty all day," Kurama added.

"You got a video player?" Yusuke asked.

"…Yes…"

"Perfect! There's a great video rental place just around corner from here – I'll be fine!"

Kurama sighed softly and tried to remind himself that his freedom from spirit world prison depended on him complying with Koenma's orders, and Koenma's orders were to watch over his new spirit detective until Botan returned.

Kurama decided to spend his lunch-break the next day trying once more to get through the barrier around the city of ghosts and apparitions.

**

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**

**Next Chapter: **Botan and Hiei make a new "friend" who promises to be quite useful, they share a conversation about the meaning of the word "love" which leads to Hiei trying to demonstrate his point and in spirit world Koenma receives the news that Yukina is being held hostage by Tarukane.** Chapter 8: Nothing's Greater**

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**A/N:** If you were affected by any of the issues in today's instalment of "Bleeding Love", you can make your feelings known by clicking on the "Review this Story/Chapter" button below and entering your concerns in the little pop-up window. Thank you.

**NB:** "Masterbike", "Boots" and "Burning, Looting, Raping, Shooting" belong to Bad News.


	8. Nothing's Greater

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Recap:** The citizens of the CGA were celebrating Botan taking up residence in Maze Castle as their new ruler, Botan saved Hiei from a fall (which confused him), Kurama explained to Yusuke that he is standing in for Botan, Botan asked Hiei to dance and he took it way out of proportion and Kurama started to worry that Yusuke did not understand his temporary role.

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**

**Chapter 8: Nothing's Greater**

Hiei savoured the sight of the flustered ferry girl once more breaking into a sweat, panic tautening her features, her eyes searching his as her mind struggled for an escape route from the road she had just walked right up – like the idiot that she was.

He would have her ankles behind her head in less than two minutes.

"Lady Botan!"

Hiei's eyes snapped up to the obnoxiously yellow abomination soaring into the room.

"Lady Botan, I've come to serve you!"

The ferry girl gasped, suddenly awakened from her trance, and turned to the loud-mouthed parrot demon that had just landed onto the highest peak of rubble in the room. The bird puffed out its chest and turned its beady red eyes to the ferry girl, almost smiling at her.

"Oh how adorable!" the girl gushed, touching her hands to her cheeks. "Somebody taught that beautiful bird to talk! And they taught it to say my name!"

Her expression dulled slightly then and she turned back to Hiei.

"Even the parrot knows my name," she said flatly. "What's your excuse, mister charmless jerk?"

She roughly pushed his hands from her sides – and in his confusion he let her do it – and she skipped across the room to the bird.

"Hello pretty-pretty birdy-wirdy!" she said in a baby voice, holding out her hand towards the creature.

"Um, I'm not your pet!" the bird scoffed, leaning out of her reach. "I'm here to serve you, just as my cousin Murugu served Suzaku!"

"…You can actually talk?" the girl asked. "You're not just copying something else you heard? You can actually understand when someone talks to you and answer them back?"

"…Yes, and I offer my humble serves to you as a messenger!"

"Ooh, how lovely!"

"For a price, of course."

"Oh."

Hiei balked as the girl turned to him almost expectantly.

"What?" he snapped irritably.

"Pay the bird, Hiei!" she whispered.

Hiei gave a short growl before tearing his sword from its sheath and stalking up to the bird in question.

"I have no need for your services, you flying rat," he warned the bird. "If you leave now – and do it quietly – I'll let you live."

"You shouldn't be so hasty, emiko!" the bird replied, flapping a wing about in a most annoying manner. "In this city, I am the most valuable ally you could hope to make!"

"I don't need a pet," Hiei answered it. "I already have one."

He waved his sword at the ferry girl to indicate his point, ignoring the way she yelped in protest of the derogatory reference.

"I don't need you shrieking, shedding feathers and shitting everywhere," he added. "Now get out of my sight!"

"Wait!" the ferry girl cried, thrusting her hands out in front of Hiei's sword. "Let's hear what she has to say first!"

Hiei was not entirely sure that she was serious, but as he saw the look of desperation on her face he realised that she apparently was, which proved that she was either incredibly stupid, ridiculously naïve, overly optimistic or stupendously desperate. Or all four.

"Maybe she can help us…" she whispered.

"I can help you," the bird said. "For a nominal fee. Paid daily."

"Pay the bird, Hiei," the woman said to Hiei.

Hiei thought about telling the girl to pay the stupid bird herself, but then an idea occurred to him: currently, the only thing in the entire city of ghosts and apparitions that came close to being strong enough to harm him was the energy blast the girl had used that morning, and she had said she could only use it with the aid of the ring he had already taken from her. He had intended to find out how the ring worked in case there was a chance that he could use it himself, but he now thought that he had a better use for it.

"Here," he said, retrieving it from his pocket and tossing it at the bird. "Now tell us what you know."

"Ooh, this is pretty!" the bird cooed as it caught the ring with its feet.

"Hey!" the ferry girl squawked. "That's mine! How did you manage to take it from me?"

"Tell us what you know," Hiei said to the bird again.

"You can't give that ring away!" the girl insisted. "It's not yours to give away! It's not even mine to give away! That's the Concentration Ring from spirit world! It belongs to Lord Koenma and is only to be used by the current spirit detective!"

"Hn, then why were you using it this morning?"

"That's… I…"

Hiei slowly shook his head at her and then turned back to the bird.

"Tell me something useful, servant," he demanded.

"The barrier around this city was supposed to be impenetrable," the bird said. "Nothing gets in and nothing gets out."

"I said tell me something useful, not waste my time," Hiei growled in a low voice.

"The barrier is not as impervious as those who built it intended it to be," the bird replied. "My species are able to pass through it to the remainder of demon world. I can relay messages to places beyond the city limits in demon world, and I can even access portals to the living world and spirit world: I am your only means of communication with the outside world."

"Oh my goodness!" the ferry girl blurted out, jogging up to the bird. "You can take a message to spirit world?"

"Of course!" the bird replied nonchalantly. "My cousin Murugu was the one who delivered Suzaku's demands for the barrier's removal to spirit world!"

The ferry girl fell to her knees, gaping up at the bird in awe. She looked like she might cry, which was the last thing Hiei needed – his ears were already hurting from listening to the irritating, scratchy tones of the bird demon's voice.

"Prove yourself," he said, pointing an accusing finger at the bird. "I don't believe your claims. Prove that they are true: tell me why I can't locate Yukina with my jagan eye. If you really are a messenger, capable of travel to all three worlds, you will find out where she is and why I can't see her myself."

"Yukina?" the bird echoed, sounding slightly disgusted and very bored. "Never heard of her."

"She's an ice apparition," Hiei replied. "A young girl with red eyes and blue hair. The last time I saw her, she was in the market town in the western region of demon world. I haven't seen her since, and I don't know why that is."

The bird looked down at Botan unblinkingly for a long time before turning back to Hiei.

"Isn't this the one you seek?" it asked. "She has red eyes and blue hair."

"No, idiot," Hiei sighed. "That is not Yukina. Yukina is a graceful creature with useful powers, and she has perfect red eyes and blue hair. That thing in front of you is a clumsy ferry girl with no power and watered down, unattractive near-red eyes and off-blue hair."

The ferry girl turned to glare at him indignantly, but Hiei ignored her.

"If you can find Yukina, I will allow you to be my servant," he told the bird.

"It shouldn't be too hard, I suppose," the bird agreed. "I'll need a little time though."

"Three days," Hiei replied.

"That's not exactly ideal, but I can see you won't haggle with me," the bird said. "I'll do the best I can."

It lifted up from its perch and started to fly off, but Hiei grabbed one of its feet, halting its progress. It hovered above him, staring down at him in confusion and fear.

"You don't "do the best you can"," he warned it. "You will get me an answer. Failure is not an option."

The bird nodded and Hiei released it, letting it fly away. He was still dubious about its claims, but it was obvious that Suzaku had possessed ways and means of communicating with the outside world, and Hiei had so far only managed to piece together part of how the leader of the Four Saint Beasts had achieved that: he knew that Suzaku had communicated with the residents of the city via Genbu, who had relayed his messages through the walls of the castle itself, negating the need for any of the demons to ever leave the castle, and Suzaku possessed an all-seeing mirror that he had used to watch the events in any of the three worlds of his choosing. Hiei's plan had been to restore the mirror and use it to track down Yukina, since he had been unable to check on his sister for several days after she had mysteriously vanished. He had no idea how to even begin restoring the mirror, but if the bird could find out where Yukina was, that would be a start at least.

"There you go again," the ferry girl said, rising to her feet and looking suddenly very indignant.

"What?" he echoed: though he wondered why he was asking, since he did not really care what she was trying to say.

"There you go again," she repeated. "Talking about your girlfriend."

Hiei slowly narrowed his eyes. What was the idiot talking about now?

"You were dreaming about her earlier," she continued. "You seemed worried about her, and I suppose now I understand why: she's gone missing. Is she your wife? And if she is, you really should be ashamed of yourself for talking filth to me. That's no way for a married man to behave."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Hiei warned her.

"I'm talking about Yukina!" she replied. "You called out her name in your sleep and now you've sent that bird to look for her! She must be very precious to you – which is so sweet, I never pegged you as the loving type."

Hiei raised his sword to point the tip at the girl's chest.

"If you ever mention the name Yukina again, I will kill you," he told her.

"Shall I just refer to her as your sweetheart, then?" she whispered in an almost mocking fashion.

Hiei raised his sword a little higher, aiming the tip at her throat and moving a step closer to her.

"Do you remember what I said about cutting off your tongue?" he asked.

She did not answer him, but frustratingly she looked more disappointed than frightened by his threat.

"Hn, idiot," he grumbled, lowering his sword.

"Can I ask a question?" she said, holding up a finger.

Hiei immediately lifted his sword to her throat again.

"Not about your sweetheart!" she hurriedly added, eying her own reflection in his blade. "It's about this castle."

"Proceed," he said.

She glanced back and forth between his eyes and his weapon as though she was expecting him to remove the threat on her life: further proving what an idiot she was.

"Okay…" she said when she finally realised he was not going to move. "I just wondered why we went through the Gate of Betrayal, the lava pit, the trick door and up that long, broken staircase just to get to this room."

"…Because this castle is a one big maze, and that was the only route that would take us to this room," Hiei sarcastically replied.

"Well not really," she said. "That bird just flew up here from the city, so we could have just…"

She summoned her oar and tilted her head towards it to illustrate the remainder of her point. Hiei took a moment to realise just how stupid he felt, and when he did fully realise how ridiculous the situation was, he hoped that his agony did not show on his face. Maze Castle was filled with traps to catch intruders, but it only ever relied on it walls and the demons that lived within them to deflect an unwanted aerial approach: and since the room they were in was missing most of its perimeter wall, flying up from the city would have been a lot quicker and easier than the route they had taken.

"I hate you, ferry girl," he concluded, before turning away from her.

**

* * *

**

Botan had always been too nosy for her own good – and she knew it. Everybody had their flaws, even ferry girls (or perhaps especially ferry girls) and Botan's biggest flaw was that she could not resist the urge to spy on people, to eavesdrop, to read secret diaries without permission and to then walk about looking smug because she knew things she was never meant to about other people. Some might argue it was a vindictive trait, but Botan never meant any ill will by it. It was addictive for her, and the more someone tried to keep a secret from her, the more desperate she became to learn it.

So strong was her addiction to interfering, Botan started to feel glad that she was not going to be rescued from the city of ghosts and apparitions any time soon because she simply had to find out who Yukina was and why she was so important to a selfish, vicious loner like Hiei.

"You hate me?" she asked, touching a finger to one corner of her mouth and pretending to look thoughtful.

"You know that I do," Hiei grumbled.

"Even though I have blue hair and red eyes?" she asked, smiling slyly at the back of his head.

"You don't have blue hair and red eyes, woman," he growled.

"Well, okay, my eyes are pink, but that's a sort of red, isn't?" she replied, determined not to give up.

"I already told you I won't discuss this with you," he warned. "And I don't appreciate you comparing yourself to Yukina. She is a demon, she is a beauty and she is infinitely more graceful and intelligent than you could ever hope to be."

Botan wanted to say something persuasive in reply, but she suddenly found herself at a loss for words, which was quite unexpected. Usually she never struggled for something to say – and even if she did, she could still usually blabber out any old nonsense to fill a lull in conversation – and Botan never gave up in a difficult situation, she never ran out of ideas and always managed to come up with a plan, no matter how absurd.

But for some reason she felt a strange pain in her chest and she suddenly felt quite silly.

And apparently even Hiei noticed the unexpected change in her demeanour as he turned his head to look back over his shoulder at her, his glare somewhere between expectant and confused.

"It sounds like you really love her," she eventually managed to say.

"Hn, "love"," he sneered. "Don't throw that word around like you have any idea what it actually means."

Botan suddenly forgot all about her moment of discomfort as she was overtaken by confusion.

"What?" she asked.

"You heard me the first time, woman," he spat. "You're a product of spirit world. I would call you dead, but you never died, so even that isn't right. You have no understanding what it means to be alive. Look at how confused you are in that body: that's what life really feels like, and until you've been alive, you can't possibly know what love is."

Botan's face twisted.

"Are you telling me that you understand love better than I do?" she asked.

"Hn."

Hiei turned away from her, but as he had not denied her question, she had to think that he was just too proud to admit that what she was suggesting was true – which was highly unexpected.

"I didn't think you believed in love, Hiei," she said. "I thought you despised it!"

He began walking – more cautiously this time – towards the large frame on the back wall again, ignoring Botan's question. But the more he ignored her, the more sure she was that she was right. If she was wrong, he would have had no problems denying her suggestions and threatening her if she questioned him further on the matter, but the fact that he was letting her talk was, in her eyes at least, a sure sign that he agreed with what she was asking of him.

A strange idea began flooding Botan's thoughts: she wanted to know more about Yukina and Hiei's love for her, but she also felt strangely awkward about finding out more about it. Had she finally reached her own personal limit for inquisitiveness? Was snooping into Hiei's love-life so low that even she was above attempting it?

"This mirror will let us see things in the other worlds," he said suddenly. "If we can fix it, we can at least see if anyone is planning to try to take down the barrier around the city."

Botan perked up a little upon hearing him say "we", which at least showed that he was willing to let her live until he had fixed the mirror and that he understood her desire to escape the city too. And, as he seemed to be acknowledging that she too was stuck there, was he also agreeing to accept her as his ally?

"Well what do we have to do to fix it?" she asked, starting across the room.

"Hn, you have to stay away from it," he replied, turning to smirk condescendingly at her as she neared his side. "A blundering fool like you will only cause more damage, and this mirror must be repaired."

Botan felt her anger start to rise and her patience start to wear thin: but she almost welcomed the feelings, as they were overtaking that strange discomfort she had felt when she had been listening to Hiei talk about Yukina and love.

"Maybe I can fix it, did you ever think of that, mister sunshine?" she snapped.

"And maybe if I cut open your head I'll find a brain," he replied.

"This mirror looks a lot like the communication television in Lord Koenma's office," Botan said firmly.

"Well that was helpful," Hiei muttered.

"The communication television is the master controller of the communication mirrors used by the residents of spirit world, and I still have one of those mirrors with me. Maybe this mirror works on the same principles, and maybe I can fix it!"

Hiei's face changed slightly and he turned more fully towards Botan.

"You can repair communication devices?" he asked. "They taught you that in spirit world?"

"Oh no, I've never repaired anything in my life!" she cheerfully replied. "But I use them all the time, so it can't be that hard to figure out."

Hiei growled and Botan was sure that she heard his knuckles cracking as he tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword.

"I use this sword all the time, but that doesn't mean that I have any idea how to repair it when it breaks!" he barked.

"That's hardly the same thing," she pointed out. "You can't compare the two, it's–"

"No, you can't!" Hiei cut her off. "Repairing a sword would be a far simpler task than repairing this mirror!"

He sighed and shook his head.

"You really are useless!" he concluded. "I don't know why spirit world bothered sending you after me. Hn, as if you could catch a criminal! The only possible reason they could have had for sending you would be the hope that your annoying, mundane personality would drive me to insanity and make me surrender myself to them!"

"That's very hurtful!" she argued. "You can't just go around saying things like that to people all the time! It's rude and unhelpful!"

"You're not going to start crying again, are you?"

"I might!"

Botan folded her arms and glared at him, but he looked more bored than anything else, and she found that to be even worse than seeing him angry.

"Go and sleep somewhere, it's late," he told her.

Botan looked about herself. They were standing in a sort of throne room, which had been thoroughly trashed, and contained nothing more than the broken mirror on the wall, random piles of rubble on the floor, and multiple holes in the roof, walls and floor that threatened to expose them to danger.

"Where are the bedrooms?" she asked, turning back to Hiei.

"In your case, anywhere that's out of my sight," he spitefully replied.

She turned abruptly from him and marched over to one end of the room, sitting down behind a pile of rubble and dropping her head into her hands. Again she wondered why she had gone after Hiei – and she found that every time she asked herself the question, she found it harder to remember her original motivation. She started to cry, but she made sure to do so quietly so as not to lure Hiei into yelling at her any more. She was cold, wet and smelly and most of all, she was alone. She missed her friends from spirit world, she missed Yusuke – even though she had not known him long – she missed Koenma and she missed the relative simplicity of flying around on her oar, gathering souls from the living world. The thought that she might never return to any of those things left her miserable, but strangely, the thing that was making her saddest of all was the way Hiei was treating her.

She had not expected – especially after his initial cruelty towards her – that Hiei would be kind to her, but after hearing him talk about Yukina and seeing how his face changed whenever he thought about her, Botan now knew that Hiei was not heartless and that he was capable of caring, which meant that the reason for his cruelty was not his own cold nature but rather the fact that she was so detestable to him.

And for some reason, that thought really, really hurt her.

**

* * *

**

Hiei tried to keep his eyes on the fire he had lit, he tried to keep his eyes on the leg of the animal he was roasting over the fire or at least to just keep his eyes down, but he kept failing. His eyes continually wandered across the room to the ferry girl no matter how hard he tried not to look at her. When he had awoken in the morning, she had not been there – which had been a little annoying as he had intended to wake her up and make her fly him to the wooded area so that he could hunt for his breakfast – and in her absence he had been forced to leave the castle on foot. By the time he had found his way out – which was an onerous task without her to fly him over the difficult parts – and across the city to the woods, he decided to kill two forest boars instead of one, to save himself the bother of having to leave the castle again that day just to hunt. The journey back had been longer and slower – because he had been carrying a carcass over each shoulder – and by the time he had finally made his way back up to the throne room, it was late afternoon, he was grumpy from having missed his mid-day nap and the stupid ferry girl had been there waiting for him, suddenly dressed in an uncharacteristically skimpy white dress and a wreath of flowers and berries around her head that marked her as the new ruler of the city.

And, to make matters even worse, she had a series of food platters on the floor around her, presumably leftover from the banquet that had been held in her honour – and he knew that the citizens of the city had held a banquet in the ferry girl's honour because he had heard their cheers and smelt the food the whole time he had been trying to get out of Maze Castle.

She had not looked at him or spoken to him since his return. Not that he cared. It was infuriating though. She was the most annoying creature he had ever known – well, second most annoying after that spirit sword-wielding human friend of the spirit detective – but somehow her incessant blether made their otherwise dreary situation seem a little more bearable. Probably just because when she was hassling him he had something else to focus on to take his mind off of the idea that he might be condemned to remain in the city of ghosts and apparitions for the remainder of his long existence.

"It's not that I don't believe in it," he said quietly, watching her carefully through the smoke of the roasting meat in front of him. "It's just that it's very different across the three worlds."

She paused, her eyes still on the same slice of vegetable she had been twirling in her fingers for the past few minutes.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she eventually said.

She put down the piece of vegetable but did not look up.

"Love," he said.

She looked up.

"Love?"

"Yes."

Her eyes were locked on his almost as though she could not look away – it was the sort of overwhelmed look Hiei was more accustomed to seeing on the face of a human who had just looked into his jagan eye and consequently become hypnotised.

"In spirit world it is a gentle, tender, committed thing," he said quietly, keeping his eyes on hers as he spoke. "It's about holding hands and saying nice things to each other. In demon world it's a rough, brief and intense thing. We don't care for sentimental speeches, flowers and boat rides under the moonlight. It's about passion, raw and all-consuming. But it doesn't last. Nothing in my world ever does. In the human world, it's something between the two: sometimes it's meek and gentle like it is in spirit world and sometimes it's dark and dirty like it is in demon world."

She shook her head slightly.

"That's not love you're describing," she said quietly. "What you said about love in spirit world is only one type of love: the type we feel for a friend or a distant relative. And what you said about love in demon world is just… Lust."

"You only say that because you don't understand," he retaliated. "You've never known any other way. The powers that be in spirit world tell you that when two individuals come together in demon world and indulge in a grand passion that it's just lust, and lust is such a dirty word. They train you to despise and fear it because if you ever felt even the slightest hint of it you would understand it, you would want it, you would desire it and spirit world couldn't handle the consequences of its residents pursuing their own physical needs and desires."

""Physical needs and desires"?" she echoed. "That is just lust, Hiei. Love isn't about lust. It's about a bond between two souls."

"A bond?"

"Yes, a bond."

"Explain."

"I can't. That's the magic of love. It's a mystery and it's ever-lasting."

"You're wrong. You don't understand because you've never felt it yourself."

"And you have?"

Hiei smirked, removing the boar leg from the flames and biting into it, silently enjoying the way the ferry girl tried and failed to hide her disgust as she watched him chew through the steaming meat that was still bloody in the centre.

"Not your kind, no," he replied once he had swallowed his first bite. "Not the sappy, meaningless, endless, one-dimensional, bland spirit world kind of love, no."

She nodded.

"Well by that logic, I've never experienced your type of love," she replied. "You know, the dirty, brief… Demon kind of love…"

Hiei smirked again. She appeared not to have noticed her misspoken words – referring to demon world love as "your type of love", making it personal – but he decided not to point them out to her, rather to try to force her hand into saying something more ridiculous and then pouncing on her and making her suffer.

"It shows," he said instead, before biting into his meal again.

"I'm not ashamed of it," she immediately responded, looking self-righteous and trying to sound like she meant what she was saying. "Love is a precious, sacred thing. Nothing's greater than true love. And nothing's worse than the filthy, promiscuous behaviour you're talking about. Is that how you treat Yukina?"

Hiei chomped at his meal, trying to contain his initial flare of anger upon hearing that stupid ferry girl once again accuse him of wanting his own sister as a lover.

"Or maybe you're actually in love with her," she said, smiling slyly. "But you won't admit it because you're too proud and stubborn and you're afraid it will be seen as a weakness."

"Yukina is not my lover, woman," he replied.

"Oh, the plot thickens…" she said, her smile widening. "It's an unrequited love. Well, if she is the refined beauty you say she is, maybe she doesn't want a rude, arrogant criminal like you in her life."

Hiei paused long enough to calm himself and formulate way to put himself back in control of the conversation before answering.

"Say what you want about your spirit world "love", but you'll never know passion, ferry girl," he said. "You'll never understand it because you'll never experience it. You'll never know how it feels to desire someone so much that it hurts, to loathe every minute you don't have their naked body pressed up against yours, to completely lose control of yourself and to know that it's alright because the one you feel so strongly about feels exactly the same way about you. You'll never feel true, raw desire, and nobody will ever desire you. You will continue to exist, restricted by the boundaries spirit world has set for you, knowing only the sappy, unfulfilled sentimentality of something they call love. I don't know how you can stand such an existence. I would rather die than live in such ignorance."

Hiei knew by the way her face had slowly changed into something quite pitiful that he had once more regained the upper hand, and he happily took another mouthful of meat.

"What you're talking about is not love!" she said stubbornly. "It's disgusting! How dare you describe something as sacred and wonderful so horribly?"

Hiei swallowed the contents of his mouth and threw down the shank of meat he had been holding.

"Does the sentimental shit that spirit world sells to you as "love" satisfy your mind?" he asked.

"…I don't know," she replied, her eyes lowering to the ground. "I've never been in love before. Not like that – not with a soul mate."

"Hn, soul mate," Hiei scoffed.

"I believe in traditional, romantic love, Hiei!" she yelled, standing abruptly. "What's wrong with that?"

"How can you believe in something you've never felt?" he challenged, rising to his feet.

"Right back at you, Hiei!" she shouted, jabbing a finger in the air at him. "You admitted you've never loved a soul mate, so how can you criticise true, traditional, romantic love?"

"Neither have you," he pointed out, stepping over the fire and almost laughing at the way the ferry girl gasped as though she expected the flames to burn him. "You've never felt love the spirit world way, the demon world way or even the human world way. How can you be so sure that you're not wrong?"

"Because I'm repulsed by what you described as "the demon world way"!"

"You're ill qualified to make that argument, ferry girl. Not until you've done it the demon world way to know that it's not the right way for you."

"I have no desire to do anything the demon world way, least of all love!"

"Really?"

"Yes! It completely repulses and disgusts me! You said you'd rather die than understand and want love the spirit world way, well I would rather cease to exist than understand or want love the demon world way!"

"Liar."

She gasped and made to argue further but stopped short as Hiei grabbed a handful of her hair and pushed his fist into the back of her head to bring her face closer to his. She was momentarily too shocked to argue or even to attempt to resist him and so he continued to take advantage of the moment, slipping his free hand between her knees and resting his palm against the inside of her leg.

"How can you know that my kind of love isn't right until you've tried it?" he whispered, sliding his hand up the inside of her thigh as he spoke, his wrist pushing up the material of her dress to expose more of her legs.

She opened her mouth slightly but no sound came out, her bottom lip simply quivering redundantly. He leaned closer to her, allowing himself a few soft, short laughs when she made a slight – almost involuntary – movement of her head as though she expected him to kiss her.

He had her right where he wanted her.

**

* * *

**

"Sir, I've got an urgent message for you!"

Koenma sighed, but did not look up from his paperwork. The piles of pending work had been getting higher and higher in the last two days and somewhere amongst that mess was a selection of memos George had reliably brought to him, but Koenma had not touched any part of it since Botan's disappearance. He was instead studying a book on emergency procedures and protocol for deployment of the spirit world Special Defence Force in the hope that he could find a loophole and force his father to send the entire squad to the city of ghosts and apparitions to rescue poor Botan and summarily execute Hiei for his many crimes.

"It's from our informant in sector 73, Sir!" George said, stopping in front of his desk.

"Add it to the pile, ogre," Koenma said, keeping his eyes on his reading.

"You might want to take a look at this one straightaway, Sir."

Koenma looked up abruptly, glaring at the blue ogre standing over him.

"Our informant in sector 73?" he said. "Isn't that the crazy old woman who used to be helpful because she could detect demon energy, but these days just complains about the gambling club who live at the top of the hill?"

"Yes, Sir," George replied. "But she says–"

"I don't have time to care about what she says, ogre!" Koenma interrupted him. "Can't you see how busy I am?"

George eyed the pile of untouched paperwork at Koenma's side.

"Sir, you haven't done any work since you sent Yusuke to the city of ghosts and apparitions three days ago," he pointed out.

"There's been a lot going on since then!" Koenma argued.

"And there's a lot more going on in the living world, Sir," George insisted, placing down his latest memo on top of the pages of the book Koenma was trying to read. "Look at this."

"I don't have time for this!"

Koenma grabbed up the page and read it in an instant – several hundred years of constant paperwork had made him arguably the fastest reader ever known – and although he had been preparing himself to sentence the ogre to a vile punishment for interrupting him needlessly, he quickly changed his mind when he finished scanning the memo.

"Is this true?" he asked, looking up at George.

"One of our informants confirmed it, Sir," George replied. "The gambling club have captured the ice maiden Yukina and they've been holding her captive for about a week now."

"And the rest of it?" Koenma pressed. "Is the rest of it true too?"

"Yes Sir," George solemnly replied. "We've been able to confirm that Yukina is Hiei's sister."

Koenma looked down at the memo and then the book he had been reading.

"It looks like this might be our lucky day after all, ogre," he said. "I think we've just found what we needed to get Botan back and capture Hiei again."

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter:** Botan manages to connect her communication mirror to the mirror in Maze Castle, where she connects to an audio feed from Koenma's office and what she hears leaves her shocked and confused. Botan is not the only one confused though when Hiei finds himself doing something unexpected, and back in the living world Yusuke makes a new friend. **Chapter 9 – Your Embrace**

**

* * *

**

**A/N:** Today's instalment of "Bleeding Love" was posted as a tribute to Lucretia Decoy, who is sadly still with us. To express your sympathies for her family and friends at this difficult time, please click on the "Review this Story/Chapter" button below and enter your message in the little pop-up window. Thank you.


	9. Your Embrace

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Recap:** A bird demon offered to help Hiei and Botan communicate with the outside world (for which Hiei paid her with Botan's Concentration Ring), Botan tried to make Hiei tell her who Yukina is and why he cares about her, they both discussed the meaning of love that ended in Hiei trying to prove his point and Koenma learned that Yukina is being held prisoner by Tarukane.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 9: Your Embrace**

Botan was too scared to move, but at the same time too terrified to stay where she was for any longer. Hiei had an almost painful hold of her hair and his hand – his warm, strong hand – was still easing its way up the inside of her right thigh. She was slightly stooped over as he was holding her head level with his own, and he seemed to be getting dangerously close to kissing her. She was sure that if she let the moment drag on, either his lips were going to come in contact with hers or his fingers were going to reach the top of her leg – or both could happen simultaneously – and although she feared either of those things becoming a reality, the tightness of his grip on her hair was a sickening reminder that he was infinitely stronger than she was and any attempts to escape him would be futile and might only make her situation worse. But if she did not at least try to fight him off, would he think that she wanted what he was trying to do to her?

Why was he doing what he was doing anyway, she wondered desperately? He had been disgusted with her since the moment she had come across him trying to cut the tracking device from his leg, so why would he want to touch her and kiss her? It made no sense. She knew that he was trying to prove some sort of point to her: that the filthy, depraved, brief sexual encounters considered the norm in demon world were just as worthy of being called "love" as the virtuous, pure, ever-lasting spiritual endeavours known as love in spirit world. But this was one messed up way to prove a point, she thought.

"What are you doing?" she managed to whisper out.

"What do you think I'm doing?" he asked, his smirk widening to the point that his eyes changed shape.

"It feels like you're… Trying to take advantage of me," she replied.

"Hn, I'm not trying to take advantage of you," he said.

Botan sighed as his hand stopped, his fingers clinging onto her inner thigh, barely an inch shy of her panty-line.

"Good, I'm glad," she said, attempting an awkward smile. "It would have made things terribly difficult for us both if you had been trying to take advantage of me!"

"But I'm not trying to take advantage of you, ferry girl," he replied.

Botan's smile faltered: why had he put so much emphasis on the word "trying"?

"I am taking advantage of you," he added in a low voice.

She gasped.

"At least, I thought I was," he added, looking almost amused. "You're not exactly resisting my advances, so it's arguable whether I'm taking advantage of you or whether I'm just giving you what you want."

She started to shake her head – as best as she could with Hiei still clutching a handful of her hair and holding her in place – but she was cut off as he started to move his hand again, her body momentarily freezing in horror.

"I can fix the communication screen!" she blurted out desperately.

Hiei stopped again, his expression changing slightly to prove that she had at least got his interest.

"If you let me go, I'll fix it," she lied. "I do know how, I just didn't say before because I was scared you would make me do it and then you would use it to spy on Lord Koenma."

"Did you lie about the tracking device, too?" he asked quietly.

"Wh-what?" she echoed, feeling genuinely confused.

"You said you couldn't remove it before," he reminded her. "Was that also a lie to stop me forcing you to take it off and let me go free?"

"No! I'm not powerful enough to remove it!"

"But you are powerful enough to kill an entire army of man-eating ghouls?"

"That was an accident! And I had the Concentration Ring to help me!"

"You can't produce that attack without the ring?"

"Well, yes, but it's very weak without the ring to help me. And since you gave the ring to that bird, I'm back to being powerless!"

"Good."

Hiei started to relax his grip on her hair and Botan allowed herself to breathe more easily, relieved that at last he seemed to be giving up. She had come to accept that she would probably only escape the city of ghosts and apparitions by death, but if she was going to die, she wanted it to be as swift and as painless as possible – the idea of being tortured to death by a demon trying to prove to her that lust was more important than love was the worst possible ending of her human life that she could think of, and she was keen to avoid it by any means possible.

"Fix the mirror and I'll consider accepting that you are not entirely worthless."

Botan made to snap at Hiei's rude remark but her voice came out as a short, small whimper as he dragged his hand down the inside of her leg again. He had moved quicker than he had when he had been moving his hand up her leg, but the sensation of being touched somewhere she never had before in her human body was still a new and thrilling one.

Not that she thought being with Hiei was thrilling in a good way – more in a sort of terrifying way.

"I can fix it," she lied, nodding her head and smoothing her dress over her thighs again.

She turned from Hiei and started to pick her way through the rubble towards the giant mirror. She had absolutely no idea how to fix it – she could not even fix her own compact communicator – but she intended to continue the bluff long enough to make Hiei forget what he had been doing and saying before she made her false claim. She had never been stumped in a situation before, and she was determined that, despite not being a very good liar, she could fake her way through this particular deception. Koenma had always commended her on her can-do attitude, and this was just another challenge to rise to.

It was her can-do attitude that had made her a candidate for the role as assistant to the spirit detective, she thought darkly. Initially she had loved the job and been honoured to have been offered it, and she had been looking forward to the changes and challenges it would present to her. But, after finding herself sealed into the city of ghosts and apparitions with Hiei, she had steadily grown to hate her new role and the human body that had come with it.

She knelt down by the control console attached to the mirror and pulled off the already loose back panel, finding a mass of wires and an empty container that looked as though it needed spirit (or demon) energy to charge it so that it would power the console and the mirror. She was quite pleased with herself for figuring out that much, but she did not know what purpose any of the wires served, and so she was going to have to be very inventive with her lies to Hiei about her progress fixing it.

Out of desperation, she retrieved her broken communication mirror from a pocket in her dress – where she had been storing the remaining spirit world items she still had in her possession – and she held it up beside the back of the control console. Both were a mess of wires and neither looked even remotely alike.

Lying about this was going to be Botan's toughest challenge to date.

**

* * *

**

Hiei gave a small growl as he watched the idiot ferry girl pretend to fix the mirror. He had not read her mind to know exactly what she was thinking, but it was clear from the perplexed look on her face and her redundant hand gestures that she was absolutely clueless about what she was looking at, and so reading her mind was pointless. He was also not bothering to read her mind because he did not really want to confirm what an idiot she was and how stupid she apparently thought he was that she thought her silly little ruse would fool him.

He had already decided to let her suffer faking her way through her lie until sundown – which was close already – and then he was going to tell her that he knew she was lying and finish proving the point he had been trying to prove earlier.

Secretly, he was quite keen to finish proving the point he had been trying to prove earlier. Ever since she had used her healing magic on him and reminded him that he had not been with a woman for an unreasonable length of time, he had been painfully consciously aware that his body had needs that could not be ignored forever, and he was finding his eyes increasingly wandering to the ferry girl's legs, which, in her current clothing and position, he had a very good view of. Legs had always been his favourite part of a woman, and as the ferry girl was quite tall and of a generally lithe physique, hers were especially attractive.

Not that he was attracted to her, because she was still an idiot who smiled far too much, but if he was going to be stuck with her in Maze Castle for the foreseeable future, he could at least find a use for her that made her company a little more bearable.

"–st go ahead and hit me already and get it over with."

The ferry girl screamed and scrambled back from the mirror in alarm. She looked shocked, but not nearly as shocked as Hiei felt.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded.

"It sounded like Yusuke!" she replied, her eyes still on the control console she had been pretending to fix.

Hiei looked about himself before focussing on the control console again. Was it possible that the woman did actually know how to fix the mirror? But if she did, why had they only heard a small amount of an audio feed? Hiei had understood – from experience of similar devices around demon world – that Suzaku's mirror provided a one-way visual on any person or place of his choosing. So why then had a voice spoken from the console as the mirror had remained in darkness?

The ferry girl muttered something that sounded like a standard prayer for safety and then crawled back over to the console. She poked about at it for a few seconds before leaping back as though she had been electrocuted.

"–tell me from now on," a voice said. "That's all I ask, Yusuke."

The ferry girl gasped and touched a hand to her chest.

"It's working!" she said, pointing at the pile of broken plastic she had somehow attached to the control console.

Hiei started towards it but stopped as another, familiar, voice started emanating from it.

"That's it? You're not mad at me?"

It was that spirit detective – the one who was strangely powerful, hard-working and noble for a human.

"I just get so worried when you disappear," a girl's voice said. "Maybe you should give me Botan's number. At least she would tell me where you are so that I wouldn't have to worry so much."

"Uh… Botan, right…" the spirit detective said awkwardly.

"What is this?" Hiei demanded, pointing at the shattered device the sound seemed to be coming from.

"I-I don't really know!" the ferry girl answered. "I just tried to connect my communication mirror to the control for the mirror on the wall, and it seems to be picking up a conversation Yusuke's having with Keiko! Yusuke has a communication mirror too, he must be carrying it with him and the microphone must be picking up his conversation. He doesn't seem to be able to hear us, I don't think, but maybe I can fix that… Then we could ask for help!"

She started to move towards the device but Hiei was too fast for her. He pounced at her, grabbing her arms from behind and holding her back.

"What are you doing?" she gasped, looking back over one shoulder at him. "Don't you see what this means? If I can get the communicator functional again, we could call Yusuke and Lord Koenma and tell them that we're stuck here!"

"Don't you think they already know that we're stuck here?" Hiei hissed.

"But we've been here for three days and nobody has come to rescue us yet!" she argued.

"Doesn't that tell you something?"

"…That nobody knows we're here?"

"Of course they know we're here! The only reason nobody has come looking for us is because they know that we're contained and out of their way here."

"That's maybe true of you, but what about me? Leaving you here is no big deal, since you're a wanted criminal, and this city is as good a prison for you as any, but what about me? I haven't done anything wrong, and I can't stay here!"

Hiei sighed. There was no reasoning with her, and apparently she was even stupider than he had given her credit for being, as apparently she had yet to realise that spirit world did not care that she was sealed into the city too. Hiei had been suspicious of her presence there at first, but he had since come to realise – after seeing how eager and dumb she was – that she had actually gone against orders and come to the city to try to catch him and take him back to spirit world herself without anyone's knowledge. The rulers and law enforcers of spirit world were no doubt angered that Hiei had evaded them, but they were obviously happy that he was now sealed off into the city of ghosts and apparitions because that meant that he was out of their way and no longer a threat to them (because Hiei doubted they would have the sense to realise that he would take over the city and ultimately use his position to force their hand in taking down the barrier). The fact that, by letting the barrier close and remain closed, they had lost a single ferry girl was a minor matter to spirit world. The ferry girl with him now seemed oblivious to just how insignificant she was, even to her own kind from her home world.

"Nobody cares that you're here, ferry girl," he said quietly. "Nobody is coming to rescue you. This is your fate. Either accept it or die."

"But…"

She groaned as she tried to pull her arms free of Hiei's hold, but, with little effort, he held fast until she gave up and let her head hang low in defeat.

"I don't intend to stay here forever," he told her. "I intend to take control of this city and then get back to demon world. The only way you're getting out of this city is after I've achieved what I came here to do and I make spirit world take the barrier down for me."

He released her then and stepped away from her. He hoped that she would not start crying again – the only thing he could throw at her now was a rock, and that might kill her. He decided the best way to avoid having to listen to her cry or accidentally killing her before she had been of use as a hostage was to make sure that she did not start crying in the first place. He turned around and started to warn her against her hysterics, but stopped when she threw herself down at the little spirit world device again and started pressing at the shattered remains of buttons and wiggling loose wires. A few times Hiei heard fragments of the spirit detective's voice, but then he started to hear another voice, a whiny voice like a child who needed to blow his nose. He shortly recognised the voice as Koenma's and was only vaguely interested in having an audio connection to the prince of spirit world; but his interest suddenly peaked when he heard who Koenma was conversing with.

"I'm not sure… ike that idea, it's a very comple… not to mention the added worry that Hiei is sure to…"

Hiei dropped to his knees at the ferry girl's side. She stopped what she was doing and turned to him curiously, tears in her eyes.

"Fix it," he ordered her.

"I'm trying," she said.

She turned her attention back to the device, wiggling wires and subjecting them both to more intermittent segments of conversation before she finally cried out and threw the device down, the audio suddenly becoming perfectly clear and uninterrupted.

"–ance we're going to have to take," Koenma's voice said. "This is a vitally important mission, and as soon as I have all the details, I'll be entrusting you to accompany Yusuke on it."

"Assuming you haven't managed to recover Botan before then," Kurama's voice said.

The ferry girl gasped and Hiei glared at her to warn her to remain silent.

"I don't think that's something we need to plan for any more," Koenma said.

"What do you mean?" Kurama asked.

"Well, Botan has been in the city of ghosts and apparitions for two and a half days now," Koenma replied. "She's in a human body, so if she's still alive, she must have been eating and drinking the food and water in demon world. She's been living amongst demons, she's been breathing the fetid demon world air and she has a physical presence there. It's been several hundred years since a human last visited demon world, but our records show that every time a human with no demon heritage or powers goes there, they becoming tainted. The longer they stay, the more food and water they consume, the more air they breathe, the worse it becomes. Kuwabara was never meant to go to the city of ghosts and apparitions with Yusuke – he went of his own volition and without permission – and by luck, his heightened spiritual awareness and powers protected him from becoming tainted. Botan, on the other hand, doesn't have that advantage, and she has been there considerably longer than Kuwabara was. Even with a spirit world built barrier around the city, it's still a part of demon world, and staying there will still have tainted her."

"What are you saying?" Kurama asked.

"I'm saying that by now Botan is probably beyond salvation," Koenma answered.

"Are you saying that you think she will have assimilated to her environment?"

"Something like that, yes. She certainly won't be the Botan I once knew any more. The taint will have corrupted her. I couldn't take her back to spirit world now even if I wanted to. I'm afraid Botan is lost to us forever."

The girl thumped a fist onto the little device the audio had been broadcasting from and it once more fell into silence.

"Well done idiot!" Hiei snapped at her. "You finally managed to fix it – you finally managed to do something useful – and you just went and broke it again! Hn, I bet Koenma is glad that he has an excuse not to take a worthless klutz like you back into his employ!"

She slowly stood up and Hiei stood with her, glowering at her expectantly.

"Is it true?" she asked, her voice so quiet that even Hiei's sensitive ears barely heard her words.

"What?" he echoed.

"Is it true?" she asked, turning to him, her eyes filled with something indescribable and potentially on the brink of hysteria. "Am I tainted?"

"Hn, how should I know?" he responded, shrugging indifferently. "I don't know much about humans, and I don't know anything about what happens when one is brought to this realm. I don't care to know either."

To his surprise, the ferry girl grinned at his response, almost looking as though his words had pleased her but for the wicked glint in her eyes.

"Go on then, Hiei," she said, taking a step towards him.

"…What?"

"Do it."

"Do what?"

"Whatever it is that you need to. You can't take control of this city unless you kill me or claim me, so pick one and get on with it already, because if I really am tainted and doomed to live here forever more, you're going to have to make that choice."

"Fix the mirror and I shall decide your fate then."

She paused and for a brief moment she looked slightly more logical, as though she might actually give some consideration to what he had proposed. But the look was instantaneous and she returned to the unstable look she had been wearing before and moved another step closer to him.

"You can't do it, can you?" she asked.

"What?" he echoed, leaning back slightly to try to keep a sensible distance between them.

"If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it by now," she replied, her grin widening as she spoke. "But instead, you've brought me food and water and taken me into this castle with you."

"You followed me in here!" Hiei pointed out.

"You've had plenty of chances to kill me, Hiei."

"I needed to get you up here to the mirror! I intended to torture you up here and broadcast your suffering to Koenma to force him to take down the barrier around this city!"

"…Sure you did."

Hiei growled at the girl but she did not even blink.

"Come on then, let's do this," she said, planting her hands on her hips.

"Do what?" he asked.

His voice sounded slightly nervous to even his own ears.

"Well, since you're obviously not going to kill me, why don't you start teaching me about the ways of life in demon world?" she said, her tone almost sarcastic. "Since I'm going to be here for the rest of my life, I will need to learn. You can start with that thing we were discussing earlier."

"Wh-what thing?"

"The "grand passion" you were talking about. Your demon world way of loving…"

"Why would you want that?"

"Didn't you hear what Lord Koenma said? I've been tainted. I'm one of you now."

"…That doesn't explain why you would–"

"Show me your meaning of love."

"You don't–"

"Now!"

Hiei leapt back, a slight sweat bursting from his pores as he saw the girl stumble onto the spot he had been standing on before he had moved.

"Don't be so irrational, you fool!" he warned her.

"You had your hand up my dress a few minutes ago," she reminded him.

"And that was all it took to make you want this?" Hiei asked flatly.

"You said my ignorance of your type of love made me naïve, you made it sound like I was missing out on something. You said I can't be sure about what I want until I try it your way. So…"

"So what?"

"So take your clothes off and let's do this."

Hiei froze, momentarily dumbfounded. His only slight consolation was a sense of smugness in the knowledge that he was right about her naivety: only someone truly ignorant to a demon's passions would dare try to ignite them so blatantly.

"I'm not joking, Hiei," she said, starting towards him again.

"If you come within reach of me, I'll make you regret talking this way!" he replied.

He was not going to bother warning her again, and he had meant every word: if she got close enough, he would give her exactly what she was asking for, whether she changed her mind or not.

"Good!" she shrieked.

Hiei staggered back a step as she swiped her hands at him, alarmed to find that she was trying to remove his coat. She did not stop despite his resistance and when he stood still, she succeeded in her task and grabbed at the belts of his pants.

"This is happening whether you like it or not!" she growled.

Hiei thought about pointing out to her that his willingness was a major deciding factor on what she had planned, but since she was managing to quite efficiently remove his belts he decided to just give in to what she was asking for. After all, he had needs himself, and although she was the last creature he would have willingly chosen as a partner, she would suffice until he escaped the city of ghosts and apparitions and could find himself someone a little more worthy.

And with that thought in mind he grabbed her dress in both hands and easily tore it asunder in one outward motion.

**

* * *

**

Botan awoke almost reluctantly, squinting against the sunlight intrusively shining onto her face. She was uncomfortably hot, and she supposed it was because of the sun shining down on her. Obviously she had forgotten to close her bedroom curtains again. It made for a very deep and enjoyable sleep, but waking up and getting out of bed was always that much harder when she was hot and comfortable. She had not heard her alarm or any announcements calling her to Koenma's office, so obviously she had not slept in, and she decided to simply bask in the glorious heat and go back to sleep. She was certainly tired enough – exhausted, in fact – and so she snuggled the side of her head against her pillow, touching a hand to the pillow to hold it in place.

Botan's eyes opened out wide. She held her breath. She dared to gently squeeze her hand into what she was touching. She moved her eyes to her side and inhaled deeply through her nostrils as she saw the source of the weight she could feel rested there. Inhaling deeply brought the scents of smoky cinders, sweet tree sap and dull metal into her nose.

She stayed very still as she tried to remember exactly what had happened the night before that had led her to where she was now: semi-naked and cuddled up to Hiei.

Memories of the night before began seeping back into her thoughts, each one making her more panicked than the last. She had been upset and irrational after hearing Koenma say that rescuing her from demon world was no longer something he intended to do and she had turned on Hiei and demanded that he show her his definition of love. She had torn off his coat, he had torn off her dress and together they had fallen to the ground in a tangle of limbs and lips. They had rolled over each other a few times, sharing a frantic, clumsy, open-mouthed kiss, their hands gripping and groping at each other's remaining clothing.

Botan felt physically sick when she remembered what had happened next.

Hiei grunted, a sound she felt as much as heard as her left ear was pressed against his bare chest. His hand moved slightly at her side, his fingers dragging over her skin in an almost tender gesture. She stiffened, waiting for him to say something or to violently push her away: but instead she heard and felt him let out a heavy sigh and he carried on sleeping. She dared to move then, lifting her face from his chest and carefully twisting her neck to look up at his face. His eyes were closed, his features relaxed and serene, his lips slightly parted. Botan secured her left hand against the ground and pushed her head and shoulders up from his body, shifting her weight onto one hip. She began lifting her right hand from Hiei's chest only to yelp in surprise when his left hand shot up and caught her wrist in an almost painful grip.

Botan stopped, holding herself perfectly still. Even though Hiei had just moved to catch her hand, he still looked like he was asleep. His eyes were still closed, his breathing was still slowed and his face was still smooth and his features relaxed. She started to think that maybe it had been an accident, but as his right hand began gripping into her side and she felt the muscles of his arm twitch and tighten across her back she realised that her hope of escaping him unnoticed had just been crushed.

"Hiei?" she whispered.

He opened his eyes and they were immediately staring into hers, as though he had been watching her through his closed eyelids to know where to pinpoint her when he lifted them.

"About last night…" she began, smiling awkwardly. "You know that was just… I was just really distraught, I was acting out of confusion and misery, and what happened… Well, you know, that little thing that happened, it was a mistake, right?"

"That little thing?" he echoed, his voice low.

"Yes," she said.

"Which little thing?" he growled. "The five minutes of clumsy foreplay, the ten minutes of vomiting, the twenty minutes of crying or the forty minutes of begging to be held?"

"Um…"

Hiei's eyes narrowed slightly, and although it was a disgusted, disgruntled look, he did not look as angry or vicious as Botan had thought he might.

"I was confused," she reminded him.

"So was I," he replied. "I thought you were just an idiot. I had no idea you were also a hysterical, melodramatic tease!"

Botan tried to move away from Hiei but he gripped his arm tighter around her, holding her in place. As she looked down at him the tense, irked and yet not entirely furious look on his face reminded her what had led to her pouncing on him the way she had.

"Am I really tainted by the demon world taint?" she asked quietly.

"No," he immediately replied, drawing a sigh of relief from her. "First of all, there's no such thing, as far as I know, and secondly, if you were, you wouldn't have thrown up, dissolved into tears and then insisted on hugging me all night last night."

"But… Lord Koenma said–"

"Forget what that idiot said. The only way a human can become corrupted by anything related to demon world is through possession or psycho-manipulation. There is no demon soul possessing your body, and no demon is controlling your mind."

"Oh…"

"If you were somehow affected, you would not have stopped after a brief fumble last night. And as for wanting to "cuddle" all night, that's definitely not a demon trait."

"It's not?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Then why did you hold me all night?"

"I–"

Hiei stopped abruptly, and for the briefest moment, Botan almost thought that she saw a look of awkward embarrassment pass over his eyes.

"You didn't give me much choice in the matter," he said. "And as you said yourself, there are only two ways I can take leadership of this city from you: either I kill you or I claim you."

Botan's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"So does this mean you want to claim me?" she asked.

"Idiot," he grumbled.

He released her wrist and sat up, but Botan could not help but notice that his arm was still around her back and his hand was still clutching her side. He turned his head from her, looking over at the mirror – the original cause of the situation they now both found themselves in. He did not say anything, but he did not make any attempt to move either. Botan lowered her eyes, cringing slightly as she realised just how awkward her situation was: Hiei was in his pants, his feet and chest bare, but she had seen him that way before, whereas she was in her bra and panties and nothing else. Though she supposed that he had seen her that way before – back in the lava pit. But the difference now was that she was pressed up against him.

It reminded her of the comment he had made the night before in his description of demon world love: "to loathe every minute you don't have their naked body pressed up against yours". Not that either of them were naked. Or that they were loathed to be apart. Just that they were semi-naked. And pressed together.

Botan turned her head away, trying not to think too much about how it actually felt to be in such a position. Her human body often did things that surprised her, and the feeling of Hiei's bare skin against hers was doing all sorts of things, especially when it moved against her or when she thought about it too much. She tried to preoccupy herself by looking out of a hole in the nearby wall, but her eyes kept drifting back to Hiei. She soon found herself peering over his shoulder at his back. Unsurprisingly, it was strong and packed tightly with muscles, like the rest of his body seemed to be. But, unlike the rest of his body, the skin on his back was not entirely flawless. She leaned into him a little more to get a better look, her eyes spotting more and more of the small imperfections in his skin.

"What's that?" she asked, lifting up her left hand and touching the tip of one finger to the most obvious of the mars in his skin.

Almost as soon as she touched the little indent, Botan found herself airborne. She shrieked in alarm as she crashed down against the unforgiving ground, scrambling to right herself. She had skidded on one elbow, drawing blood, she could feel a dull pain in one hip that she was sure would bruise and she had bitten through her own bottom lip on impact. After a few seconds of sitting where she had landed, her points of injury began to throb and she turned her head towards Hiei, glaring at him angrily.

"What was that… For…?"

Her demand lost it's momentum when she saw that Hiei was on his feet and glaring at her, his eyes glowing and his shoulders heaving with every breath he took.

"Hiei?" she asked.

"Don't touch me," he growled.

"Well excuse me!" she snapped back. "You didn't have any problems with me touching you last night!"

"If you touch me again, I'll kill you!" he yelled.

"I don't understand!" she wailed. "I just wondered what that mark on your back was! You've got a few of them, but that one actually looked like a sort of welt in your–"

"Stop!"

Botan obediently fell silent, watching Hiei expectantly.

"Stop your meddling," he added in a low voice. "I'm sick of you asking stupid questions about me like my life is just a stupid fairy tale created for your amusement!"

"I-I didn't mean to pry!" Botan replied.

That was not entirely true, she thought to herself, but asking Hiei about a mark on his back had been the least intrusive personal question she had asked him, so his suddenly excessive response seemed misplaced.

"I'm sorry if I upset you," she added.

"Hn, I don't get "upset"," he scoffed. "Unlike you."

Botan slowly got to her feet, feeling safe to do so as the initial glow of rage had faded from Hiei's eyes.

"I'm not from this world," she pointed out. "It's difficult for me to adjust to life here."

"Hn, don't get too comfortable here," he muttered. "You won't be here for much longer."

"I hope not," she replied, no longer caring how she left the city – even if it meant dying and being erased from existence. "But… For what it's worth, I appreciate that you didn't hurt me last night when I was… Vomiting and crying and… I felt very safe in your embrace, and I… Well, thank you for holding me."

"Hn."

Botan narrowed her eyes at him but Hiei turned from her again. She started thinking that perhaps she ought to invent a monosyllabic, ambiguous grunting noise that she could use on Hiei the same way he used "hn" on her all the time: but she quickly realised how terribly boring and pointless that would make life seem if every conversation she shared with him consisted of them grunting at each other. And, she thought, if she started behaving like a demon, maybe what Koenma had said about the taint was true, and she was determined to prove that, in this once instance, Hiei was right over Koenma: there was no taint, and she was still a virtuous ferry girl.

**

* * *

**

Kurama was confused. His breakfast was surprisingly tasty, and apparently his mother had enjoyed hers too as she was halfway through her second helping. Yusuke was still in the kitchen preparing a second helping of tamagoyaki for Kurama, and, at his side, he had prepared lunchboxes for both Kurama and his mother.

"He's a demon in the kitchen, isn't he?"

Kurama turned abruptly to his mother, almost choking on a mouthful of egg.

"Your friend?" Shiori whispered. "He's an excellent cook, and still so young! It's like he's some sort of demon, sent to lure is in with his delicious cuisine!"

Kurama smiled and nodded. Yusuke had been surprisingly well-behaved as a house-guest, and, since he had decided to cook breakfast that morning, he had won Shiori's favour, and she seemed to be happy to leave him alone in the apartment whilst she went to work and Kurama went to school that day.

"You've out-done yourself, Yusuke," Shiori called through to Yusuke.

"Hey, it's no big deal," Yusuke called back.

"You'll have to come round more often," she replied. "Shuichi never takes friends home with him… Well, apart from that odd little fellow who never speaks – what was his name, Shuichi?"

"Hiei," Kurama answered her.

"Did you ever meet Hiei, Yusuke?" she called through to Yusuke.

"Yeah, a couple of times," Yusuke replied, his tone changed.

"He was a very quiet boy, but he always took his boots off when he came inside and he was always very polite."

"I can't imagine that…"

Yusuke muttered out his last remark so quietly Shiori's human ears failed to detect it, but Kurama's heightened senses heard every word only too clearly: and it made him wonder just what Hiei was up to at that moment.

**

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**

**Next Chapter: **Is it the taint, is it the sense of loneliness and isolation or is it something else entirely? Botan and Hiei do the unthinkable, and neither of them are left feeling the way they expected to afterwards, And it shortly proves to not have been a one-time thing – but are they both playing a very dangerous game that neither of them can handle the consequences of?** Chapter 10 – This World of Loneliness**

**A/N:** Today's instalment of "Bleeding Love" was brought to you in association with the FRF (Fangirl Rehabilitation Foundation). If you would like to nominate a fangirl for a course of treatment at an official FRF centre, please click the "Review this Story/Chapter" button below and enter her details in the little pop-up window. On behalf of all sane society, thank you.


	10. This World of Loneliness

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Just a quick time-out to explain something important that some people have asked about/pointed out: no, the rating won't be going up, and no, there will be no gratuitous sex in this fic. I received a very scathing note from a loyal reader/reviewer on chapter 25 of "Anything She Does" (I won't go into detail about what was said, but it was very humbling) the gist of which was that I am an ass for sacrificing plot for plain old porn and debauchery that is uncomfortable to read. (Which, if you've read it, is why after chapter 25/26 of "Anything She Does", there wasn't really many more explicit scenes, most especially towards the end of the fic, where I axed out about two chapters/10k words worth of it.) Anyway, the point is, no awkward, explicit sex in this fic. There will be an absolute truckload of kissing and implied acts of things more intimate, but no graphic details (that span countless chapters and make me look like I write a lot, LOL!)**

**Also, just to clear something else up while I'm on a sex rant, I am the (probably only) sort of person who doesn't subscribe to the fanon thing about demons bonding to their mates by biting their necks. I think that's probably already been obvious to anyone who's read anything else I've written, but just to be clear: I don't like it and I won't write it. (And it is FANON, just a fan opinion, and not CANON, actual fact, so no flames about that please.)**

**Getting back to the plot…**

**

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**

**Recap: **Botan managed to get an audio feed from Yusuke's communication mirror and Koenma's office, where she learned that spirit world believe her to have been "tainted" by demon world and beyond salvation, whereupon she challenged Hiei to teach her about demon world love – which ended in her embarrassing herself and very little happening between them.

**

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**

**Chapter 10: This World of Loneliness**

"You should eat something."

Botan paused, her hands hovering over the mess of broken glass, plastic and wires, silently wondering how she ought to answer Hiei, if at all. She eventually decided to ignore him, as he was chomping his way through another appendage of one of the vaguely pig-like beasts he had brought up to their temporary accommodation, and, as hungry as she was, she was not quite desperate enough to eat a creature she could not readily identify.

"Here," Hiei said.

From the corner of her eye she could see the shadow of something he was offering her. It seemed odd to her that he would care enough about her welfare to bring food to her. Slowly she turned her head towards him. Frustratingly his features were cast into shadow by the light spilling into the room from a strategically placed hole in the roof, but despite not being able to see his face, she could clearly see the plate of finger-food he was offering her, a remainder of the food she had taken from the banquet the day before – which seemed even more considerate and unlike him.

"I'm just trying to get this fixed," she said, pointing at the remains of her communicator.

"You haven't eaten anything yet today," he replied. "You've got a physical body now, ferry girl, it has physical needs that you would be unwise to ignore."

Botan wished that she could see Hiei's face in that moment to determine whether or not he was still just talking about food.

"I'm not hungry," she lied. "And besides, shouldn't I just be concentrating on fixing this so that you can start torturing me in front of Lord Koenma?"

"Hn, the torture won't be any joy for either of us if you pass out from starvation and can't even feel what I do to you," he replied.

Botan sighed and then shuffled around on her knees – she had changed into her pants and vest again for practicality's sake – and picked up a single piece of sushi, glancing up at Hiei as she did so, trying not to look too sarcastic. She put it in her mouth and faked a smile, but her act ended there as she inadvertently opened the scab that had formed on her lip after she had bitten it that morning.

"Ow," she muttered through a mouthful of food.

She subconsciously touched a hand to the point of injury and withdrew it again, looking down to see a small red mark on her fingertip. She heard Hiei grunt something that could have been a word, but she did not bother looking up as she assumed that he was disgusted with her and she could not see his face to confirm his feelings anyway. She swallowed the contents of her mouth only to almost choke it all back up again when Hiei knelt down in front of her, bringing his face level with hers.

"You really are of no use to me if you die before I can get what I want out of you," he said quietly.

Botan almost felt brave enough to ask just what it was that Hiei wanted out of her, but she stayed silent when he placed down the platter and reached a hand out towards her. She suppressed a gasp of surprise when his thumb touched the wound on her lip, his touch both unexpected and mildly uncomfortable as he pressed the pad of his thumb onto the cut. His face was mostly blank bar the mild look on concentration in his eyes as he stared at her lip. It was a strangely intense and intimate moment, and despite having initially been confused and a little afraid, Botan almost moved an instant ahead of Hiei when he removed his hand and leaned in to take her wounded lip between each of his. She was not really sure that it counted as a kiss – in fact, she did not know what it was or what his intentions had been – but she closed her eyes regardless and relaxed into it.

At first, it was a gentle, warm and pleasant sensation having his lips on hers, and, in her moment of weakness, she even allowed herself to enjoy it. However, the feeling started to change when he began to gentle suck on her lip, drawing blood from the cut. Botan started to moan as it began to hurt and, just as it reached the point of becoming almost painful, he lessened the pressure and slowly pulled his lips from hers, pulling her lip a little as he did so. She opened her eyes again, finding him already looking at her, a small amount of her blood forming a line between his lips. As she watched him his tongue slid out just enough to lick her blood from his lips and she distinctly saw something in his eyes change.

"You could search forever for the type of love spirit world tells you is worth waiting all eternity for," he whispered. "Or you could just let go and enjoy the type of loving demon world abides by."

"You mean with you?" she asked, surprising herself with her own courage at voicing such a bold and direct question.

"Why not?" he responded.

"Well, for a start, you are incredibly–"

Botan's words quickly turned into a muffled cry of protest as Hiei slid a hand around the back of her neck and pushed his lips against hers again, this time in what was undeniably a kiss. She tried to pull away, parting her lips slightly as she did so and Hiei took advantage of her move, easing his tongue into her mouth. She tried to moan out a complaint but he growled in response and moved his other hand into her hair, grabbing at it almost painfully and lifting himself up into a crouch to lean over her. He forced her to tilt her head back, keeping his mouth sealed over hers in a hungry, almost aggressive, kiss. Helpless against his vastly superior strength she merely crumbled beneath him, his hands on her head holding her in place as he continued to relentlessly ravage her mouth with his tongue.

On instinct, she reached up her hands and grabbed at the shirt he was wearing, the need to hold onto something consuming her. She had wanted to push him away to allow herself a chance to draw breath but she instead found herself tugging at his shirt, a strange rush of something hot flooding her chest as she dared to move her tongue in rhythm with his. He growled appreciatively in response to her actions and moved one hand to one of her legs. She moaned in shock as he grabbed at her knee and straightened it out, almost off-balancing her, his lips stubbornly never leaving hers throughout the short struggle. Once he had straightened out her leg he moved his hand back to her hair and then moved his other hand to her other leg, straightening it out too. Again she clung desperately to his shirt and moaned in surprise, but she was almost glad when their lips remained locked together.

Hiei then slid his hands downwards one stopping at the back of her neck and the other continuing down to the small of her back. Once his hands were in position he carefully leaned further forwards, easing Botan down onto her back beneath him. She was not really sure what his intentions were, but right then she felt so lonely and confused and so reassured by his closeness that she no longer cared. Arching her back to press more of her body against his, she decided to simply give in to whatever it was that was making his attentions seem so right to her – demon world taint, loneliness, confusion or just the simple physical needs he claimed her human body had.

**

* * *

**

Botan was sure that Hiei's demon senses – if not just plain common sense – would see through her vain attempt to pretend to be asleep, but she persevered regardless, keeping her eyes closed and breathing as slowly as her racing heart would allow her to. She would never know if her ruse had somehow been effective or if Hiei had simply decided to humour her, but eventually he did cautiously untangle himself from her and carefully lay his coat over her naked form. On the off chance that she had somehow managed to fool him, she continued the pretence until she could no longer hear his footsteps, which had gradually faded in the direction of the tower steps. She then slowly opened her eyes, the sight of the semi-ruined room around her making her so far controlled memories of the last hour seem suddenly painfully real. She was not really sure that she felt any remorse or regret, but in that moment she knew for sure that she could never undo what had been done and she knew that her life would never be the same again.

She rolled onto her back, letting her limbs flop out at her sides. As she lay staring up at the roof, with its broken sections revealing patches of blood red demon world sky, Botan contemplated how, from thenceforth, she would refer to her memory of that morning – which she was sure would be everlasting. Would she remember it as the time when, in her human body with its strange needs and desires, she had succumbed to the temptations of lust, or would she remember it as the first step of her education in love – demon world style.

It was not love, she told herself stubbornly. Love was a beautiful, eternal, gentle thing that fulfilled the heart, challenged the mind and blessed the soul. The best way to describe what had transpired between herself and Hiei that morning was that they had shared an act of loving. The worst way to describe it was that they had shared an act of raw, unadulterated sex.

Botan slapped a hand over her eyes. Somehow she found that blocking her vision helped ease the feeling of having done something terribly sinful and dirty. And it somehow helped her forget just how much she had enjoyed every minute of it too.

Botan did not know what the spirit world opinion was on one of its ferry girls having an illicit affair with a demon – though she supposed no such legislation existed, since no ferry girl had ever taken physical form before. Even if such a ruling did exist she doubted it would be favourable to the practise. Hiei had said it best himself: she was of spirit world, and as such, the control and eradication of demons ought to be her main priority. She could still remember how agitated Koenma had been over Hiei's demon energy injuring her hands when she had tried to stop Keiko's transformation into a demon: she could only imagine how he would react upon learning that Hiei had burst through something far more intimate than the skin on her hands that day.

But by far Botan's biggest concern was that she had enjoyed every minute of Hiei's attentions, and she was left feeling incredibly guilty because of it. In fact, it was her guilt that she felt more keenly than anything else. Except the pleasure she had felt during her shared moment of passion with Hiei.

Botan howled in frustration and sat up abruptly, almost immediately regretting her action as her head buzzed and her legs twitched beneath her. She had not exactly done anything other than to lie on her back and moan, but her body felt more exhausted than it had after using the Spirit Gun attack on the man-eating ghouls. She was a little bit tender and more than a little bit sore in some areas, but for the most part she just felt strangely relaxed and contented; though only physically speaking, since mentally and emotionally speaking she was a wreck.

She clumsily pulled Hiei's coat over her head and thrust her arms through the sleeves. She then carefully stood up, smoothing the coat down around her thighs in an attempt to regain some of her dignity. Her legs still felt weak and she was mildly amazed that they held her weight. She staggered forwards a few steps before stopping still again as she noticed two things that left her feeling concerned: her own clothes were lying strewn about the floor where Hiei had flung them after so expertly removing each garment with the sleight of hands movements of a practised thief, and Hiei's own clothes were also still lying on the ground. She leaned over slightly to blink curiously at the piles of black cloth around her, shortly confirming that every last item of Hiei's clothes were indeed present, meaning that he had either left the tower completely naked or else he had somehow fashioned himself an outfit from the remains of the two beasts he had slaughtered and eaten.

When Botan spotted the charred bones and other inedible parts of the beasts she stopped speculating.

She could not imagine Hiei wandering around the city of ghosts and apparitions – or even just around Maze Castle itself – in the nude, but she could not deny that he had been perfectly confident stripping off his clothes in front of her eyes. Not that he had any reason to feel otherwise, she thought, as he did have a flawless physique – memories of which made her face grow hot and her legs buckle awkwardly beneath her. She staggered a few steps to regain her balance, feeling all the more disgusted with herself for reacting so strongly to something so depraved. She managed to stumble over to a pile of rubble before she started to fall over, her legs failing her entirely. She quickly put out her hands and braced herself on the fallen stonework. She then slowly and carefully manoeuvred herself around to sit down onto the stones. However, as soon as her weight pressed against the hard stones she realised that sitting might not be any better than standing had been, her uneven choice of seat putting unnecessary pressure on parts of her body that were still extremely tender. She started to stand again and again her legs quivered.

She paused, her hands on the rubble holding herself at a 45 degree angle, her mind undecided which was the lesser of two evils: standing on shaking legs or sitting on tender body parts. She eventually decided to take her chances on her feet and pushed herself into an upright position, swaying slightly before regaining her balance by arranging her feet at awkward angles beneath her and somehow managing to find a point of equilibrium. She sighed in relief and then began looking about herself for water, as she had become aware of being quite thirsty, her survey of her surroundings ending abruptly when her eyes passed over and then almost immediately returned to Hiei, who was standing by the entrance to the room, watching her impassively.

Botan blurted out a noise that had been somewhere between the words "hello", "Hiei" and "what" before staggering awkwardly as her legs threatened to give up on her entirely. She stumbled back a few steps, yelping as her bare ankles collided with broken rock and she accidentally stepped on some of the sharper pieces of debris. She finally found her balance again when Hiei moved over to join her, casually grabbing a handful of his coat by her waist, holding it in place to support her back until she had straightened herself out. As soon as she was steady and fully upright again she stared down unblinkingly at Hiei, who continued to look back up at her with the same air of disinterest, his hand still holding onto the coat as though he did not trust her to remain on her feet if he were to let go.

"You're not wearing anything, Hiei!" she eventually snapped, her face changing colour so fast that she could see the redness spreading over her nose in front of her own eyes.

"That didn't bother you this morning," he flatly pointed out.

She growled and tried to look indignant, but knew that the redness in her face was probably making her fail miserably at looking anything other than immature.

"Just… Put something on!" she demanded.

Hiei lowered his eyes to his fist, still bunched around his coat. He lifted it up slightly and she screamed, her hands grabbing desperately at the hem to pull the coat back down over her thighs at her sides.

"I won't wear your clothes," he said, lifting his eyes back up to hers. "Either you give me back my clothes or get over your spirit world repression."

Botan opened her mouth to argue with him, but the look on his face told her that she would only be wasting her breath, and if she did push him, he would probably just forcibly remove the coat from her body, leaving them both naked, which was definitely worse than just him being naked.

"Hn, you needn't bother with the demure ferry girl act any more," he said, opening out his fist and finally releasing his hold of his coat.

"Just because you saw me naked and we…" she began. "Did… Made… Had… Just because of that, don't think it means I'm now your…"

"My what?" he asked, still looking and sounding far too casual about the situation for Botan's liking. "My lover?"

"No, absolutely not!" she snapped, barely managing to stop herself from yelping in outrage.

"But you are," he said.

"What?"

"You are."

"I am what?"

"…My lover, you idiot."

"No! It doesn't work like that!"

"…Yes it does."

"No it doesn't!"

"Yes it does."

"It does not!"

"It does!"

"It absolutely does not! We can't be luh… We can't be anything if I don't want you!"

Hiei gave Botan an almost pitying look before slowly raking his eyes over her and then replying.

"I don't think that will be a problem," he said.

"Did you read my mind?" she asked. "Do you know what I'm actually thinking about you right now? Here, read this!"

Botan tensed herself and began thinking about Hiei back inside a prison cell in spirit world, but he had turned his head from her and seemed to be more interested in watching the wall than conversing with her any further.

"Hiei?" she said when she realised that he was not really paying any attention to her.

"I don't need to read your mind," he replied, turning back to face her with the same indifferent look in his eyes as before. "And it doesn't matter what you think anyway. I read your body, and whether your mind wishes to admit to it or not, your body has already told me exactly what you think about me."

"Oh really?" Botan sneered sarcastically.

"Yes," he replied. "That was why we had sex."

Botan gasped, her jaw dropping open as she was no longer able to contain her horror at Hiei's severe lack of tact.

"You wanted it, so did I, and here in demon world we don't repress our desires like your kin do in spirit world or the humans sometimes do in their world. If we want something here in demon world, we just take it," Hiei continued. "And since you are now living here too – by choice, so you say – you are no longer required to live by the rules of spirit world either."

Botan tried to argue, she tried to get across the point that it did not matter where she resided, her morals were what they were, and she did not agree with what they had done that morning, but for some reason her mouth could not put any of those valid points into coherent words, and, after blurting out a few disjointed syllables of utter gibberish she resigned to accept defeat.

"I was going out to wash and collect water," Hiei said after a few seconds of silence had passed between them. "But when I heard you moving about I decided to come back. Fly me there on your broom, it will be quicker."

"You're ordering me around again," she muttered.

"You need to come with me because you need to wash too," he told her. "Get your stick."

Again Botan wanted to argue with him but again she could not find the words as she remembered that she did smell quite bad and having a wash did sound like a good idea, not to mention that going with Hiei would allow her to finally see where the fresh, drinkable water in the city came from.

"Well let me get dressed first," she conceded. "And… Maybe you could put on some pants?"

"What's the point?" he asked.

Botan sighed quietly.

"Because it's indecent to go out naked in public," she said in a low voice.

"That's a spirit world prejudice," Hiei replied.

"There are women and children in this city," she pointed out.

"Are you worried about other women seeing me naked?"

"Yes, very much so."

"Why?"

"Why do you need to ask that question?"

"…I think you don't want other women to see me naked."

"You think right: I don't."

"Because you're a possessive sort of lover."

"Yes, and you should consider the – wait, what?"

Botan glared at Hiei in disbelief and he returned her look with a smug smirk that seemed completely inappropriate and without foundation.

"You don't want to share me with the other women in the city?" he asked in an almost mocking tone.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she blurted out.

Though by the time he had finished asking, she knew exactly what he was talking about.

"It's been a long time since I've taken an insecure, possessive lover," he said casually. "Though I should have known that would be your type, since you are clearly neurotic, unstable and clingy."

"What?" she growled.

"I don't like your kind, generally," he continued.

"I don't like your kind either!" she said haughtily.

"Too suspicious and needy. But most of all, I don't like having my integrity called into question: when I make an agreement with someone, I always see it through to completion. I never go back on my word."

"You mean like how you came back to the living world from the city of ghosts and apparitions like you promised Lord Koenma you would?"

"I never made that promise. I never promised anything to that brat or to spirit world. But I do promise to remain faithful to you until our love has run its course."

"…Okay, first of all, don't ever refer to what we did this morning as love again. Second of all, I wouldn't trust a promise from you if my life depended on it. And finally what do you mean "run its course"?"

Hiei smiled and Botan thought that she knew why: her last question had sort of contradicted her previous two points and suggested that she was actually interested in having some sort of relationship with him. Some sort of sordid, unnatural, immoral relationship, she thought darkly.

"It won't last," he said. "Nothing in demon world ever does."

"Why not?"

Hiei raised his eyebrows slightly and Botan quickly realised her mistake.

"Why am I even asking that?" she wailed, covering her face with her hands.

"Just remember that it's demon world loving, and not spirit world love," he told her.

"What?" she asked, parting her fingers to peer through them at him.

"Don't get attached to me and assume that this is a spirit world, everlasting, devoted, romantic thing," he explained. "It's just loving."

Botan was a little bit confused – before, Hiei had claimed that love was just a word with three different meaning, depending which world it was being used in, but now he seemed to be denying its existence altogether.

"Love and loving are two different things," she said.

She was mostly challenging him to argue her point, but she was also partly saying as much out loud to reassure herself and distance what was going on between herself and Hiei from her more ingrained definition of love.

"Get your broom, woman."

Botan narrowed her eyes angrily at Hiei, but since he was pulling on his pants she said no more on the matter: partly out of relief that he was getting dressed before he left the castle with her and partly because when he bent down to collect his clothing she got a mildly explicit view of his anatomy that left her speechless.

**

* * *

**

Hiei sat watching the ferry girl. He was almost pleased with himself for having managed to find a rock that was smooth enough to make a comfortable seat, and sitting on it conveniently submerged his body from the middle of his chest downwards. The water was quite cold, but the ferry girl seemed not to mind as much as he did, so presumably it was mild by human standards. She was standing several yards away from him, her back turned to him. She had been standing still for some time and he was not really sure why, and although her air-brained thoughts held no interest for him, he could not take his eyes off of her. Either she had misjudged the depth of the water or else she did not realise because she was distracted, as the lower half of her body was submerged, but the curves of her hips were above the water level, and as the river flowed along, the water rippling against her body, he was afforded flashes of more of her skin in a way he was sure she could not be aware of.

Or maybe she knew exactly what her position was doing to him, and maybe that was why she was holding it.

Hiei tried not to admit it to himself, but he could not stop the idea that the girl was secretly more sensual than a creature from her world ought to be from flooding his thoughts. She acted as though the thought of heated sexual encounters of no real consequence disgusted her and she certainly did nothing to seek out such activities, and yet that morning she had given in to his touch quite readily. It had – very obviously – been her first experience of sex, and, as she was a ferry girl in a human body, Hiei had expected her to be even more afraid and reluctant than a demon girl on her first try: but strangely that had not been the case. He had not been especially gentle with her – though he had made a bit of an effort to restrain himself in case he had accidentally killed her – and although she had clearly struggled to keep up with him, she had taken everything he had given her surprisingly well and had even attempted to return some of his gestures with reasonable success. As much as it pained him to think about it, it had been a long time since he had been with a woman, and he had really only intended to have a go on the ferry girl to get rid of the initial release of tension he knew he had built up. He knew that if he had been with a demon girl that morning, she would have walked out on him laughing at how out of practise he had let himself become, and since his hostage was a woman, it had seemed like a convenient excuse to get himself back up to pace.

He had not expected to enjoy it, especially not as much as he actually had.

He had of course also been trying to demonstrate to her the difference between that restraining, sappy, romance crap that spirit world promoted versus the free, real passion that demon world acknowledged as love. He had hoped to either completely disgust and horrify her or else to make her realise the wrong of her ways and beg him for more. Neither had proven to be the case, which he supposed meant that he would have to try again.

And, rather annoyingly, he actually wanted to try again.

Hiei had rarely been with the same woman more than once. He had been with some partners for several weeks, but it was not something he ever made a habit of. He did not believe in the sort of devoted, attached love that the spirit and human worlds glorified the importance of, and he was sure that every other demon agreed with him – but he had always secretly harboured a fear that one day he would take a lover who would believe in that sort of love and end up falling in love with him. He knew that he would never fall in love with anyone – not in the spirit or human world sense of the word, anyway – but he had frequently worried that someone would fall in love with him. Hiei only loved two things in life: gaining power and maintaining his freedom. Having a silly girl hanging around him threatened to rob him of both of those things. Hiei liked to be alone, and the only times he was willing to change that was for brief periods of time that allowed him to pursue the two loves of his life – he would form brief alliances with others like Kurama to help him gain power and he had tolerated working with Kurama and two humans to gain his freedom from spirit world prison.

The only possible exception to any of that was his sister Yukina. He saw it as his duty to protect her from harm and sadness, but he would never dare let her so much as see him, let alone find him and learn who he was. Part of protecting her involved never letting her become a part of his own dangerous life and even for Yukina – as much as he did concern himself over her happiness and welfare – Hiei was not willing to sacrifice his single, independent, loner lifestyle.

"This city is full of life."

Hiei narrowed his eyes slightly, focussing his sights onto the back of the ferry girl's head. She had not posed her words as a question and so he saw no need to answer her, but he did have to wonder why she had voiced them.

"And with this barrier containing us all here, it's almost like we're in a little world of our own," she continued.

She then turned her head, looking back over one shoulder at him. She looked ludicrously vulnerable standing there completely naked and wet, her hair clinging to her head, face, neck and back, her eyes large and uncharacteristically sorrowful.

"It's like we're in a little world of our own, and it's full of life," she said. "But it's a world of loneliness. I'm surrounded by others, but I'm still alone. It's almost like I'm invisible. It's like I'm back in my ferry girl form and I'm walking around the living world, where nobody can see or hear me, nobody can feel my presence and most people don't even believe that I exist… Sometimes I wonder about the beliefs of humans: if they all stopped believing in ferry girls, King Enma and spirit world, would we all cease to exist? Would spirit world just vanish?"

"Don't try to be philosophical," Hiei warned her. "It doesn't suit a simpleton like you."

"Well I'd rather be an amateur philosopher than a full-blown philophobic!"

Hiei did not answer her. Not because he thought she had said something stupid and unworthy of an acknowledgement (as was usually his reason for not answering her) but because he had no idea what the word "philophobic" meant. He understood that the "phobic" part meant "fear of", but the "philo" part was completely alien to him. He had just accused her of being a philosopher, so maybe "philo" was related to philosophy somehow. Was she accusing him of fearing intellectual analyses? And if she was, was he offended or not? It was an offensive remark, but coming from a fool like her, it lost a lot of its impact as an insult.

"I've seen your type before," she said, turning her head slightly away from him, but still keeping her profile within his line of sight. "Even in the living world there are humans as blind and stubborn as you are. It's been a long time since I have personally met a soul as philophobic as yours, but that's not to say that I've never met anyone as thoroughly entrenched in illusion as you are. They all regret it, Hiei. They all break down and admit the error of their ways, even the toughest of them. Sometimes it's not until they are being judged and sentenced in the afterlife, but they all eventually realise that they wasted their lives and that their foolish pride caused them to lose out on the most beautiful thing life has to offer any soul: love."

Hiei growled quietly under his breath. He should have known that she would be talking about that sentimental nonsense again. It had almost been a nice moment before she had opened her mouth, and he had almost been enjoying her presence, but now she had ruined it completely.

"Those souls were always the ones that I pitied the most," she said with a sigh. "Because they had missed the most fundamentally wonderful thing about being alive. I'll never know true love because I don't have a life to experience it in, but those souls had a life, they had a chance – they had plenty of chances – and they wilfully chose to shun them. I always wonder why they do. Do you like being hated and alone all the time Hiei?"

She turned her head further, her torso twisting at the waist so that she was looking almost directly at him. It was a stupid question, in his opinion, since it ought to be obvious to anyone with even an ounce of common sense that he liked being alone and actually quite enjoyed being hated, but apparently the ferry girl was not only intellectually idiotic, but she was also lacking in the basics of good sense too.

"Do you like living in this world of loneliness, Hiei?" she pressed. "Do you like being king of your own empty emotionless empire of–"

"I'm not going to have this conversation with you," he cut her off.

"Then I'll have it on my own," she said. "I think I can guess what your answers would be anyway, you're surprisingly one-dimensional. You act all vague and cryptic, but the real reason you're so quiet is because you have nothing of substance to say. Instead you just judge everyone else like you have a right to, whilst hiding behind a mask of–"

"Stop talking or I will leave you alone here."

"I'm the one who flew us here, I'm the only one who can make my oar fly, you need me to get back to the castle."

"I don't need you for anything, woman. I can run faster than you can fly and finding my way through the maze again is only a minor inconvenience, one I will gladly overcome to save my ears the pain of listening to your endless drivel about the virtues of the spirit world way of life."

"Well go ahead and leave then."

"If I do leave, I'm taking your clothes with me."

She gasped and staggered around in the water to face him fully. She was – as he had guessed from the positioning of her shoulders – hugging her arms over her chest as though she thought she needed to hide her breasts from somebody who might actually care enough to watch her as she bathed.

"Why do you have to be so mean, Hiei?" she snapped.

"Why do you have to be so irritating?" he retaliated.

"I'm just being myself!" she yelped. "If you find that irritating, that's your problem, not mine!"

"You should show some shame," he advised. "And I too am "just being myself". If you find me too "mean" maybe you should toughen up a little. I thought you were trained to deal with all possible characters and temperaments, you ought to be able to handle me, especially since I have gone out of my way to tolerate you so far."

"It's comments like that that make it very difficult for me to like you, Hiei!"

"I'm not asking you to like me."

"Wouldn't it be easier for us both if I did?"

"…No."

Hiei genuinely did not want her to like him. In fact, he wanted her to hate him. The more passionately the better. There was nothing quite so satisfying as angry, hate-fuelled sex.

"I'll never understand you," she said quietly.

"I'm not asking you to do that either," he said.

Thanks to her screeching voice nagging him and spoiling the moment, Hiei was finally able to stand up without the risk of embarrassing himself and so he did so and began wading his way through the water towards her. She was pouting at him moodily as he approached, but once he got within arm's length of her he saw her expression soften.

"Have sex with me on the riverbank and then fly me back to the castle," he told her.

She sighed, looking slightly disappointed, and gave an answer that surprised and confused him and again left him strangely curious to find out more about what she was thinking after all.

"Okay."

She turned towards the bank they had left their clothes on and began wading towards it, more and more of her body coming into his view as the water became shallower around her. He wanted to understand what she was thinking, but he was also no fool: if she was willingly offering him what he wanted, he was not going to hesitate to take it.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter: **The bird returns with news of Yukina, and Hiei is left irate. Botan finally manages to fix the mirror, revealing more of the situation in the living world to herself and Hiei.** Chapter 11 – My Heart's Crippled**

**A/N:** Today's instalment of "Bleeding Love" was sponsored by the 2010 Megallica Reunion World Tour. For your chance to win front row tickets to see Megallica at a venue near you, click the "Review this Story/Chapter" button below. Good luck!


	11. My Heart's Crippled

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**I'm trying so hard with this fic, but I can see that I'm screwing up already, because:**

**Recap:** Hiei and Botan had sex and then argued a lot. (Seriously, that was all that happened, and yet the chapter was so long! Why?!)

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**Chapter 11: My Heart's Crippled**

Botan fought frantically with the wires spilling out of her broken communication mirror. She simply had to re-establish the connection between the device and the mirror on the wall in Maze Castle, because she needed to reach Lord Koenma's office. Before she had been motivated to fix it by the need to call for help, but now her motivation was something else and worryingly felt more urgent: she had to know if what Koenma had said about the taint in demon world was true.

Either it was true or she was secretly evil, and for the sake of her own sanity, she had to know which was the case.

She had just about been able to justify lying down with Hiei once as a momentary lapse in judgement and need for some form of company and validation, but she was struggling to justify the second time, especially as it had occurred outdoors, something that was especially despicable. She tried to tell herself that it was not entirely bad, as it had not been a brief encounter, but she then began to wonder if the slow and lengthy way they had shared their bodies the first time was actually worse than them both having succumbed to a brief tryst in the name of physical pleasure. Hiei was, despite not being a gentle, kind or romantic man, a surprisingly attentive lover, and even just the memory of his touch made her feel almost as wonderful as the actually physical contact had.

Botan was not terribly well-versed on other factions of the after-life outside of spirit world, but she could remember some of the fables other human religious texts contained, mainly because they had appealed to her as stories. She had often been mocked by her peers in spirit world for forgetting the facts and only remembering the almost childish aspects of the other religions, but some of the tales she had remembered had proved useful and insightful through the course of her duties as a ferry girl. She often found that she only remembered them in any detail when she could apply them to a current situation, and, for the first time ever, she found herself recalling one such story because it applied to her own life. It was the story of the first ever man and woman, who had lived in a veritable paradise, but they had lost it all because they had taken a bite of a forbidden fruit. It was not so much their story that Botan now found applicable to her own dilemma but rather how her teacher had summarised the consequences of their actions on future generations of the human race and the lesson that the tale taught: she had said of the woman biting into the fruit "the first bite whet her appetite, the second helping was even better".

Which was exactly how Botan felt about Hiei.

The teacher had also said that, knowing that the taste had improved the second time around, it became human nature to continue to pursue that taste, taking larger bites every time. Was that the future that she now faced? Was she constantly going to desire Hiei, more and more each time they shared a moment of pure passion together?

Would that still apply after she left the city of ghosts and apparitions? Was she doomed to spend eternity floating around on her oar, collecting souls, smiling like she meant it whilst all the time she was aching and unfulfilled on the inside because she was addicted to a spiky-haired, jagan-bearing piece of fruit?

One bad apple could spoil the whole barrel, she thought wryly. She made a note never to voice that thought out loud, lest Hiei complain that she was once more rattling off old adages like a spirit world scholar gone mad. But it was a very appropriate one. He was the forbidden, bad apple she had taken a bite out of and now she had been poisoned, just like in the fairy tale about–

"Lady Botan!"

Botan sighed, glad to be distracted from her own increasingly ridiculous thoughts that were all skirting around the bigger problems she was battling internally.

"I've returned a day early."

Botan rose to her feet and turned to face the colourful bird that had landed nearby her on an especially large chunk of broken down wall. She took a step forwards to stand in front of the bird before realising that she could not even remember what task Hiei had sent her on.

"If you pay me, I'll tell you what I learned about the ice maiden Yukina," the bird said.

Botan felt her heart sink. It was another new and strange sensation in her human body, and another piece of proof that some strange sayings were more than just sayings, they were accurate descriptions of how something actually felt: she could literally feel a weight pushing down on her heart. The bird had, of course, gone to find Yukina, Hiei's paramour he refused to talk about.

"I don't have anything to give you," Botan told the bird. "And you really ought to deliver the message to Hiei anyway, and I'm sure he can pay you."

The bird looked mildly perturbed for a moment before taking on a slightly smug look.

"You mean you're not even slightly interested to hear what I have to say about the beautiful Yukina?" she asked slyly.

"Of course not," Botan replied.

"Then why are you nodding your head?" the bird asked flatly.

"I am not nodding my head!" Botan argued. "Your news is for Hiei, and I'm not in the slightest bit interested in anything to do with that… Ruffian!"

"…Really?"

"Absolutely."

The bird shrugged her wings and pretended to be interested in studying a crack in the ceiling. Botan began chewing at her lip in agitation before balling her fists and stamping a foot in frustration.

"He's just so darn secretive!" she blurted out. "I shouldn't care, I don't care, but I can't help myself, I have to know! Please tell me who Yukina is?"

The bird smiled – a strange gesture for a beaked creature, Botan thought – her red eyes twinkling mischievously.

"I could tell you more about Yukina than Hiei himself knows," she said slowly. "For the right price, of course…"

"Oh, that's just wicked!" Botan protested.

"This little spirit world treasure was certainly worth my journey to find Yukina," the bird replied, holding out one leg to show off the Concentration Ring, which she was wearing around her ankle. "I know you have other spirit world treasures in your possession. Hand one over and I'll tell you all about Yukina and Hiei's relationship with her."

"Hiei's relationship with her?"

Botan began wiggling around as though she needed to use the bathroom – and the feeling she now had was almost as bad as desperately needing to go to the bathroom, because she now desperately needed to hear what the bird had to say about Yukina. Between her general nosiness and her more specific curiosity about Hiei and his ability to care about someone, it was torture for her to stand before someone who knew more on the subject than she did and be unable to hear what that vital information was.

"I can't give you any of the spirit detective tools!" she wailed. "I just can't! Hiei should never have given you the Concentration Ring in the first place! When Lord Koenma finds out about that, he'll sentence me to…"

Botan swallowed hard as she contemplated the sort of punishment she would face when Koenma found out about the stolen Concentration Ring, an item he had specifically told her she was responsible for safe-guarding.

"Oh well, that's too bad," the bird said, her voice taking on an especially irksome tone. "I suppose I could at least tell you that Hiei wasn't lying: she is a very beautiful young woman. She's very petite and delicate and… A lot less clumsy and cumbersome than you are…"

"I'm not clumsy!" Botan yelped defensively.

"Well, maybe not physically clumsy, but mentally and socially…"

Botan glared angrily at the bird, but she merely took on a bored expression and pretended to be watching the crack in the ceiling again.

"I left Hiei in the woods," she said tightly. "He's hunting. He could be gone for hours."

"So I hurried back for nothing?" the bird sighed. "Never mind, I can wait… You probably can't, but I can…"

Botan growled and clenched her fists so tightly at her sides that her fingernails began to bite into her palms. The bird was just toying with her, and they both knew it, but unfortunately for Botan, her nosiness was her biggest weakness and the bird's tormenting ways were her biggest strength, and so the torture would only continue until either Hiei returned or Botan succumbed to surrendering another of the spirit detective tools as a means to bribe the information she wanted from the bird.

"I can't give you one of the spirit detective tools," she said aloud, mostly to remind herself that it was a fact.

"Then I can't tell you anything more," the bird replied.

"More?" Botan echoed. "You haven't told me anything at all!"

"I've told you enough," the bird said.

"You've told me only just enough to make me desperate to know the rest, you menacing little tease!"

"Hiei could kill me for telling you anything more. You need to make that risk worth it."

"But I have to know!"

Botan resisted the urge to claw at her hair, another, more sinister idea occurring to her: she could smack the bird with her baseball bat and retrieve her Concentration Ring from her, then threaten the bird to tell her what she knew or suffer a beating.

Where had that vicious thought come from?

Demon world taint. It had to be.

And it was getting worse. She would never be welcome back in spirit world now. And if she never got back to spirit world, she would never need to admit to having given away the spirit detective tools to demons as payment for espionage.

"I have a Mystic Whistle, three Mejiru Shiiru labels, a Demon Compass and a Psychic Spyglass," she said forlornly. "Which one do you want?"

The bird smiled sickeningly and Botan felt as though she had just enacted another old saying and sold her soul to the devil: but she was, rather ironically, saved from having to follow through with her deal as Hiei conveniently returned to the throne room, carrying another dead boar over his shoulders. His eyes immediately locked onto the bird, and he was so intent on keeping them there, he almost dropped his prey as he tried to place it down. He then swiftly crossed the room to stand directly in front of the bird, glaring at her threateningly.

"I thought we agreed three days?" he growled at her.

"I was so efficient, I did it all in two," she replied.

"Tell me what you know," he ordered. "And don't even think about lying to me."

"Of course," the bird replied, bowing her head humbly. "I eventually found Miss Yukina in the living world."

"The living world?" Hiei echoed. "How did she get there? And why was she there?"

"It turns out she was kidnapped by some demon servants of a human man called Gonzo Tarukane. He's a member of a group of criminals known as the Black Book Club. They hide their crimes behind gambling and money laundering, but they're well known as the crooks they truly are by the demons who work for them. Tarukane lost a few bets recently and missed being the richest man in the group, so he asked his demon servants for advice, and they told him about the value of hirui stones and how they are made. He then sent his servants out to find a little hiruiseki factory for his own personal use, and they took the first ice maiden they could find: Yukina. She's being held prisoner at Tarukane's mansion in the mountains in the living world, and they contain her behind very powerful talismans; even the most powerful psychic couldn't hope to penetrate the barrier they've created around her, which is why your third eye hasn't been performing its function lately."

Hiei lowered his eyes but Botan could tell by the way his shoulders were starting to heave in rhythm with his deep breathing that he was close to losing his temper.

"They're trying to torture her to make her cry," the bird continued. "But so far she hasn't cracked. I guess being emotionless must be a family trait, right Hiei?"

Hiei snarled and swiped a hand at the bird, but his movement was surprisingly slow and badly aimed, and the bird easily managed to shoot up out of his reach. She spread out her wings and hovered above his head, looking down at him with an almost mocking gleam in her eyes.

"Getting angry won't solve anything," she sang at him mockingly. "There's nothing you can do about Yukina's fate from in here."

Hiei snarled again and punched a fist through the chunk of fallen wall the bird had been perched on. Although the wall broke, Botan could see that Hiei had not bothered to gather enough energy to protect himself from harm when he threw his fist, and she could tell that he had injured his hand – though he seemed almost pleased about the wounds he had suffered.

"Well emiko, I've done my duty," the bird said. "If you need anything else, make sure to have a payment ready for me."

Hiei cursed at the bird and in a blur of black and white he leapt into the air. Botan heard the bird squawk in pain before she rocketed through a hole in the roof, flying away as fast and hard as she could. Hiei landed on the ground again, one fist clutched around a handful of yellow and blue feathers, a few more, smaller, feathers of various colours floating around his head.

"Oh dear," Botan said quietly. "That wasn't good news about your girlfriend."

Hiei's head snapped around and he fixed glowing eyes onto Botan, who grinned nervously. He released a low growl, the feathers in his fist erupting in flames and turning to ash in mere seconds.

"Fix the mirror and make it show me where that human bastard Tarukane is," he said.

"I've been trying to fix it all day!" she replied. "It's not that simple!"

"You made it work when you needed to hear the spirit detective and the spirit world brat talking," he challenged.

"Yes I know, but I sort of broke it again, and this time I can't fix it!"

"You can't fix it or you won't fix it?"

"What?"

"Are you deliberately doing this?"

"Why would I? If I can fix the mirror and the communicator, I can call for help!"

"Exactly!"

Botan stopped, suddenly feeling so confused that she was experiencing a rare moment of speechlessness.

"Hn, do you think that spirit world will want you back now that you've got the stink of demon on you?" Hiei sneered. "You're scared to contact the outside worlds now because you're ashamed of your sins. You know they will punish you for what you've done, and you're too scared to face that punishment. You know they will be disgusted with you: you're even disgusted with yourself."

"That's not true!" Botan argued.

"Yes it is," he replied.

"That's not entirely true!" she tried.

"I don't care what you do or don't do woman, but you will fix this mirror and you will make it find Yukina!"

"Why, because she was good enough for you to fall in love with?"

Hiei's face changed and Botan had to fight the urge to clap her hands over her mouth. She could tell that he was thinking exactly what she was: why did it bother her so much that he was so concerned about Yukina?

"Are you jealous?" he asked, turning his head to give her an almost disgusted sideward glare.

She shook her head, but on the inside she not so sure. Was she jealous that he cared so much about Yukina?

"Why can you love her romantically but not anyone else?"

Apparently she was jealous.

"I don't love her romantically," he said coldly. "I don't love anyone romantically. I never have and I never will. My heart is not the sort for such foolish distractions. I am only concerned with gaining power and improving my own strength."

"You seem to be very concerned about Yukina, are you sure that you're not in love with her?" Botan asked, her bitterness evident in her tone to even her own ears. "Because it sounds like you are. It sounds like you just pretend that you don't believe in love because secretly you have impossibly high standards that only the beautiful and refined Yukina can live up to... It's quite ridiculous, actually: she's an ice apparition? And you're a fire demon? Isn't that a recipe for disaster right there? I think you pretend not to care about love because you're actually head over heels in love with this "Yukina" and she doesn't return your feelings, and your pride can't handle that, so you pretend that the real reason she isn't in your life is because you don't believe in love, but secretly it's eating you up inside that you're besotted with her, she's out of your league and you–"

"I'm going to say this one more time, and this time I'm going to say it very slowly and using very simple words so that there can be no doubt that even an idiot like you will understand: I do not "fall in love" the way humans and spirits do. My relationship with Yukina is none of your business. My heart, and what it is and is not capable of, is not your concern. If you continue to insist on meddling and gossiping, I will remove your tongue... And if I remove your tongue, think of how painful and restrictive it will be for you when I kiss you."

"...You still intend to kiss me? Maybe I don't want to kiss you ever again."

"You can't keep your hands off of me, and we both know it."

"So what am I to you? Just a cheap floozy to satisfy the needs you can't fulfil with Yukina?"

"Stop referencing Yukina."

"What did she do to get inside your heart?"

"You don't understand. My heart is incapable of feeling the sort of sappy romantic nonsense you keep referring to as "love"."

"Is your heart capable of feeling anything?"

Hiei's face softened slightly, the glow of anger fading from his eyes, and, despite knowing that his change in demeanour ought to make her pleased, Botan instead felt miserable: obviously he was about to confess to her that he did in fact love Yukina – properly, in the traditional sense of the word love – and she was not ready to hear that. It was not so much that she was in love with him and upset that he loved someone else, more that she was frustrated that he should love a woman who it seemed as though he had not so much as touched, yet he still despised Botan, who he had performed the most intimate expression of love with. Twice. In one day.

"My heart's crippled," he eventually said. "I was born that way. I was born cursed, and to have a numb heart, strong body and determined mind is part of that curse."

Botan tilted her head in confusion: that was the last thing she had expected him to say, and it only left her wanting to ask him even more questions than before. And it left her strangely optimistic: he had not confessed his undying love for Yukina, so perhaps he was not so hopelessly devoted to her after all. Though she had no idea why that pleased her.

She had to fix the mirror and use it, as Hiei had asked, to seek out Yukina; because Hiei wanted her to and because she had to know who Yukina was, what she looked like and why Hiei was so obsessed with her.

"Fix the damn mirror, woman!" Hiei snapped at her, as though he had read her thoughts (which of course he could well have done).

Botan nodded and turned back to the tangled mess she had been poring over before the bird had returned and interrupted her.

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Hiei tore strips of meat from the belly of the boar he had caught in the woods – the flesh there was the tenderest, the sweetest and the most palatable. He arranged each piece onto one of the remaining platters from the banquet, alongside the slices of fruits and vegetables he had collected after his hunt and had already prepared. He had been sure to use his sword to cut the fruits and vegetables first before using it to help him cut the meat into edible sections. Usually he would not bother wasting so much time and effort on preparing food so, but since the ferry girl was going to be his lover for the foreseeable future, he was obliged, by demon world common laws of basic etiquette, to feed her. He could just toss some raw meat at her and throw her another bag of fruit, but, as little as he thought of her, even he had some standards of decency, and also this was an ideal opportunity for him to introduce her to another of the demon world cultural norms he was sure she would be unfamiliar with.

Also it was a good excuse to play with her head a little: it was obvious by the repeated and ineffective movements she was making that she was not actually trying to fix the mirror, but, from her previous behaviour and the fact that she was ferry girl, she was bound to feel guilty if he called her up on her attempt at deceit, confess and start genuinely making an effort to fix the mirror.

"Eat something, woman," he said, sitting down beside her with the platter in his hand.

She paused long enough to run her eyes over the selection of food he had prepared on the plate, her expression twisting into one of repressed disgust and misery as she did so.

"No thank you," she whispered, turning her head back to her task.

"You have to eat," he reminded her.

"I don't want to," she stubbornly replied.

"I don't care about that," he told her. "I need to eat, and as my lover, you need to eat with me."

"What?"

She dropped the wires and the device she had been holding, turning her head so quickly her hair slapped him over the face, the ends stinging at his eyes. He blinked a few times to clear the sensation before focusing his attention onto her questioning face.

"Love in demon world is an all-consuming passion and about sharing everything," he explained. "I have specifically prepared food that we can both eat, now you will eat it with me."

"You can't force me to eat something I don't want to," she said.

She was trying to look indignant, but Hiei had not failed to notice the slight rise in pitch in her voice towards the end of her sentence as though she had unintentionally posed it as a question – one that she surely hoped he would reply to in the negative. How wrong she was.

"As lovers, we are obliged to satisfy each other's every need," he reminded her. "And right now, we both need food."

"I don't…"

She must have noticed the stern look Hiei was giving her as her voice trailed off and a slight sense of fear clouded her eyes.

"Fine then, you eat," she said, sounding more than a little immature.

Hiei decided that it was pointless wasting his breath with words any more: this girl only ever seemed to understand him when he literally proved his point, so he picked up a piece of fruit between his thumb and forefinger and lifted it up in the air between them. Despite her claims to the contrary, Hiei distinctly saw the hunger in the ferry girl's pink eyes as they crossed slightly to focus on the food between his fingers and the tip of her tongue darted out briefly to wet her lips.

"Eat," he insisted, moving his hand to her mouth.

He stopped before the fruit made contact with her mouth, looking into her eyes – which had moved to his questioningly – and staring at her determinedly. The juice from the fruit began to trickle down his fingers but he held his hand still, waiting patiently for her to finally understand what was expected of her in this lover's ritual.

"You, um…?" she muttered, her eyebrows flickering slightly.

"Eat," he repeated.

Her mouth moved as though she might say something else stupid and non-conclusive, but she then seemed to finally understand his intentions and she carefully opened her mouth and stretched her neck forwards, her eyes never leaving his. She was either too polite or too afraid – or perhaps too much of both – to follow through with the act entirely, and so Hiei pushed the cube of fruit into her mouth. She immediately leaned back from him and began to chew, her eyes lowering to the ground and her face turning a little bit pink. Hiei sucked the excess juices from his fingers before reaching out his hand to take hold of her chin, causing her to freeze, mid-chew, and glare at him fearfully. Ignoring her reaction he leaned towards her and gently licked the wetness from her lips.

He sat back again, finding something almost comical about the way she then swallowed the contents of her mouth, a partially chewed and almost painfully large chunk of fruit visibly passing down the length of her throat. He pointed at the plate rested on his knees, having to do so repeatedly before she eventually moved her eyes from his to the food. She nodded awkwardly and cautiously picked up another cube of the same fruit, lifting it up from the plate. Hiei contained a growl and an insult when she opened her mouth and made to eat what she had just collected, and instead he caught her wrist in a firm grip and shook his head at her when she moved her eyes back to his. Apparently teaching her about demon world love was going to be quite the onerous task after all, he thought darkly. With a small sigh he leaned forwards, keeping hold of her wrist, and, as gently as he could, he took the fruit and her fingers into his mouth. As he had half-expected her to, she stiffened and did not release her grip of the food, forcing him to pull it free of her fingers with his tongue.

He sat back again and began to chew the food, still keeping hold of her wrist and pointing at the dribbles of juice coming from one corner of his mouth with his other hand. She looked a little startled but seemed to understand what he meant as she began slowly and warily leaning towards him. He was not really sure that she would do for him as he had done for her and so he almost lost focus when he actually felt her tongue dragging up one side of his chin. Her actions were a little too cautious and tense, but he was sure that would change soon enough: she had certainly adapted to other demon world traditions he had introduced her to quickly enough.

The ferry girl seemed almost reluctant to move away from him, her eyes moving to his and her face remaining so close her features were out of focus to Hiei's eyes for several seconds. When she did finally come back into focus, the look she was giving him was almost too much for him to resist. She was not attractive in any way that a demon girl would be, but there was something decidedly alluring about her doe-eyed innocence and delicate features. Her look reminded him of one of the more fragile fallow deer he occasionally hunted down in the woods of demon world. They were the most gentle of creatures to be found in demon world, the most easily injured, the most easily startled, the hardest to find and by far the sweetest tasting of all. The way she was looking at him now was much the same way one of those fair creatures would look at him when he had one cornered and it knew he was moving in for the kill.

Actually, the two situations were quite similar, he thought to himself: in one instance he had a pathetically weak and defenceless creature pinned and he was moving in on it, his mouth watering at the thought that he was about to sink his teeth into it and savour its unique, sweet taste as its cries filled the air in the most delightful way. And hunting the deer was pretty much the same experience.

Hiei swallowed the contents of his mouth and picked up a strip of meat, gently taking one half of it into his mouth. The ferry girl tilted her head slightly and pouted in obvious confusion, as she had apparently expected him to continue the trend of putting food into her mouth for her – but he was too impatient to continue that part of the ritual, and since she seemed to understand it, there seemed to be no point in dragging it out. He slipped one hand around the back of her neck and clamped the other hand around the underside of her jaw, holding her in place as he moved towards her.

"What are you doing?" she whimpered.

"Feeding you," he replied as best he could with a piece of meat lodged between his teeth.

"I don't want to eat that," she said. "I don't know what it is, it might poison me!"

"…Just open your mouth, woman."

She opened her mouth – probably to argue further – and he closed the gap between them, severing the meat with his teeth and then expertly using his tongue to manoeuvre one piece of the food into her mouth whilst retaining the other half in his own mouth. Her tongue moved against his slightly awkwardly, but he suspected her actions were more a result of her misinterpreting his advance as a kiss than her understanding that sharing food so was a demon world custom that neither of the other two worlds had ever seemed to adopt (as far as Hiei was aware).

He eased his tongue out of her mouth again and began to chew, leaning back far enough to bring the woman's face into focus in front of him. Her eyes were closed, but after a second or so she seemed to sense that he was watching her and she opened them again, blushing slightly as her eyes flitted over his lips. She started to chew, her eyes moving back to his, that look of bewildered innocence and almost sinful curiosity still present in the slightly dilated pupils she watched him through. It vaguely intrigued Hiei that her human body had so many similarities to a demon's, desire affecting her in many of the same ways it would a demon girl. Unlike a demon girl, she had absolutely no concept of what her preferences were when it came to loving, and Hiei was sure that even after she had learned them, she was probably still too repressed by her spirit world ingrained mentality to have the courage to ask for them. He was hoping to change that though, if only for the satisfaction of returning the ferry girl to spirit world thoroughly corrupted.

And she had already demonstrated that she was the jealous, demanding type, and whilst Hiei hated that type of woman, they were always the most devoted and obsessive of lovers, and right then devoted and obsessed was exactly what he wanted.

"That's not bad," she said softly after she had swallowed down the meat.

"We're going to finish this meal and then you're going to fix this mirror," Hiei answered her, looking directly into her eyes to make sure that she understood that he was serious.

"Of course," she agreed, her tone unchanged.

She looked and sounded as though she had been hypnotised.

"And this time make it show us what is happening in the other worlds," he added.

"I'll try," she replied.

"Get it right and I'll give you something you'll never forget."

**

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"Is it a sexually transmitted disease?"

Kurama's head whipped back and forth, his long red hair slapping Yusuke over both sides of the face. He felt only mildly relieved to see his mother and her fiancé still laughing in the living room, apparently having not overheard the ridiculous question Yusuke had just asked.

"It sounds like one!" Yusuke added.

Kurama finished loading the dishwasher and set it to a heavy-duty programme before turning to Yusuke.

"I was sort of hoping my mother would have gone out with her partner tonight," he whispered.

Yusuke grinned darkly and leaned closer to him.

"Oh yeah?" he asked. "You got a skin flick?"

Kurama frowned curiously.

"Wh-what…?" he muttered. "I don't even know what that is!"

Yusuke pouted moodily.

"Hey, your mom's boyfriend just called me a fanny!" he hissed, glancing through the doorway to ensure that he had not been overheard. "With parents that liberal, don't try to tell me you don't know what a skin flick is!"

Kurama sighed.

"He didn't call you a fanny, Yusuke," he whispered.

"He did!" Yusuke insisted. "He said was I reminded him of an English fanny!"

"…No…" Kurama said slowly. "He was likening you to a famous English chef called Fanny Cradock."

"What?" Yusuke echoed.

"She was a famous chef in England," Kurama explained. "My mother's fiancé was likening you to her because apparently she liked to cook, but she never tided up after herself in the kitchen, just like you did here tonight, leaving me to–"

"Fanny Cradock?"

"Yes."

"…And that's seriously not something you need to see a doctor about?"

Kurama sighed again.

"Look, Yusuke, we need to talk," he insisted. "Come with me to my room – and try not to alert my mother, she can't overhear what we have to discuss."

Yusuke nodded his understanding and together they quietly crept through the apartment to Kurama's room. Kurama ushered Yusuke into the room and then quietly closed the door behind them. He turned around to find Yusuke opening his window and then leaning far too far out of it.

"What are you doing?" Kurama asked him, hurrying over to his side.

"I see some of Kuwabara's buddies over there," Yusuke replied, his head still outside the room. "I was gonna invite them up here to watch the movie with us."

"No!" Kurama said. "There is no movie, Yusuke. I met with Koenma earlier today while you were out with Keiko, and I have news for you."

Yusuke ducked back into the room and slid the window shut, looking suddenly stern.

"Are we going back for Botan at last?" he asked.

"No, I'm afraid not," Kurama replied with a shake of his head.

"Why not?" Yusuke demanded, his voice a little louder than was appropriate for what was meant to be a hushed conversation.

"I'll explain later," Kurama quietly replied. "But first, Koenma has a new mission for us."

"Us?" Yusuke asked, pointing at the window. "Should I call for Kuwabara?"

"It's probably better that you don't," Kurama advised. "This is a rather sensitive case. We have to rescue a demon hostage from a human criminal and his gang of demon workers."

"A demon hostage?"

"An ice maiden of demon world. She's being held against her will because she possesses the ability to create priceless gemstones. They are torturing her and trying to force her to mass produce the stones for their profit."

"That's sick! How does she make them?"

"They form from her tears."

"So those bastards are forcing her to cry?"

"Basically, yes. And it's not just the cruelty of her torture or the breach of the Demon Rights Act that it represents that makes this case so important."

"…Damn it, there's always a catch with anything that little pre-school brat has to tell me!"

"The ice maiden in question is Yukina: she's Hiei's sister."

"See? That's exactly the sort of shi–say what?"

"She's Hiei's sister. Koenma is hoping that, if we can take her to spirit world, we can use her as bait to lure Hiei out of the city of ghosts and apparitions."

Yusuke's face twisted in obvious confusion.

"I don't get it," he said. "I thought there was no way out of the city?"

"There isn't," Kurama replied. "Yet. Koenma is trying to set up a means of creating a way out and informing Hiei of it and that his sister is in danger. He's hoping Hiei will come to either spirit world or the living world where he can be arrested and imprisoned again, and the spirit world Special Defence Force can then enter the city of ghosts and apparitions and search for Botan."

"What if Hiei still refuses to leave the city? What if he finds out we rescued his sister and that she's safe and he decides just to stay there like he did before?"

"Then spirit world adopt plan B."

"Do I even want to know what plan B is?"

"Probably not."

Yusuke sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Come on fox boy, you better tell me anyway," he groaned. "Unless Koenma kept that from you too?"

"No, he has told me about his contingency plan," Kurama replied. "With the more powerful Saint Beasts gone and Hiei's strength being – by spirit world calculations – negligible in comparison to four powerful demons in one location, the decision has been made to simply destroy the city of ghosts and apparitions. If Hiei does not leave by choice, they will destroy it with him in it."

"What about Botan?" Yusuke asked.

"She'll die along with Hiei and the rest of the inhabitants of the city," Kurama answered.

"…Gees Kurama, it's easy seeing you're not from spirit world! Koenma or Botan would have sugar-coated that, but you just came right out with it!"

"I don't have time to waste deceiving you, Yusuke. The city is to be destroyed. The SDF will not waste time searching the city for Hiei, he could evade them for long enough there and in Maze Castle, it would be a waste of their time and he could end up killing them all if he managed to catch them in one of the many deadly traps in and around the castle. They will do a search for Botan if Hiei leaves the city because if he is not there, they can put out a call for her without the risk of Hiei hearing it and kidnapping her to use as a hostage. They have already considered that destroying the city with Botan in it will mean her death. The general consensus is that Botan's soul will have become corrupted by the amount of time she has been living there now anyway, and if the SDF are able to recover her, they are under strict instructions to treat her as dangerous and send her for a strict screening with King Enma himself before she would be allowed to return to her duties."

"…So basically it's a death sentence for Hiei either way and it's almost as bad for Botan?"

"Basically yes."

"You really don't mince your words."

"That aside, we still have a duty to rescue Yukina. She is an innocent in all of this."

Yusuke nodded slowly.

"That's the other thing I don't get…" he said slowly, scratching at his head in confusion. "If Yukina is Hiei's sister, why is she an ice demon and not a fire demon like him? And does she have a third eye too?"

Kurama smiled and shook his head.

"It's a little bit more complicated than that," he said. "But no, she doesn't have a jagan eye. And it's not just her powers that are the opposite of Hiei's, her nature is too, from what I hear. I believe she is a very gentle and considerate girl."

"…Are we sure she's Hiei's sister?" Yusuke asked sceptically.

"Koenma had his doubts too," Kurama replied. "But I know for sure that she is."

"How?"

"Hiei told me himself. He told me how they were separated at birth, and she is unaware of his existence, but he has been aware of her existence since he had his jagan eye implanted and went searching for his mother."

Yusuke slowly backed up and sat down onto the chair at Kurama's study desk.

"This sounds like bed-time story material," he said, quirking an eyebrow in amusement. "You might as well tell me the rest."

"I'm not sure that I should," Kurama replied, sitting onto the edge of his bed. "Hiei told me the details in the strictest of confidence."

"Hiei stabbed us all in the back and has pretty much just sentenced Botan to death," Yusuke bluntly returned. "He didn't care about keeping his word to us, you shouldn't care about keeping your promises to him either!"

Kurama paused, unsure how to continue. It was true that he considered Hiei to be something of traitor for what he had done after their fight against the Four Saint Beasts, because Koenma had always made it clear to them that he was trusting them to watch each other too, and so Kurama had been left shouldering part of the blame for Hiei's indiscretions, but he still felt that it was immoral to discuss another man's secrets so openly. It was not his place to discuss Hiei's past with anyone, not even Hiei himself, without Hiei's permission.

"I guess I should call Kuwabara," Yusuke said suddenly.

"No, that really won't be necessary," Kurama stopped him. "I will be accompanying you on this mission in Botan's absence, and, as a fighter, I can help you in a hands-on sense too, so there is no need to bring Kuwabara along. As eager as he is, I think it would just complicate matters if he came with us."

Yusuke looked thoughtful for a moment before smirking slightly.

"Tell me more about Hiei and his sister and I won't call Kuwabara," he threatened.

"Bribing a demon is not appropriate behaviour for a spirit detective," Kurama replied.

"I'm not your average spirit detective, and you're not exactly an average demon," Yusuke replied with a shrug.

Kurama sighed. He sensed that he could probably trust Yusuke not to divulge anything he told him, but he still felt wrong discussing Hiei's private life with another.

But by the look on Yusuke's face he could tell that he would not get any peace until he did.

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**Next Chapter:** (Well hopefully something significant will finally happen… Oh wait, the plot DOES advance in the next chapter!) Kurama (again, I'm so sorry to Kurama and his legions of fans) conveniently plays Mr. Exposition and Yusuke and Botan learn more about Hiei than they were ever meant to. With a clear deadline hanging over their heads and Yukina's fate hanging in the balance, Hiei and Botan attempt to finally put aside their differences and work together to stop a pending disaster, and doing so involves a little bit of compromise on both sides, and ultimately leads to more than a little bit of confusion on both sides as the lines between spirit world love and demon world loving start to get a little bit blurry… **Chapter 12: What They Say**

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**A/N:** This chapter didn't cover as much story as it was meant to (ie I'm still writing endless streams of he thought/she felt without ever coming to the point… And sadly the nature of this fic will require me to continue that way) but I did set up the second half of this fic, which will kick off in the next chapter, and there will (I swear!) be some action (at last!). In case anyone hasn't noticed, Kuwabara isn't going on the "rescue Yukina" mission, rather Kurama is going in his place, and Hiei will not be there either. So thinking carefully about what roles Kuwabara and Hiei played in the rescue of Yukina in the original (anime and manga), it should be obvious where this is going. And it should also now be obvious why I said this isn't exactly going to be a happy story.

The next chapter will definitely be up before Christmas.

**HereAfter**: If you're reading this, this chapter is another example of my multiple use of non-Japanese inserts FNAR. This chapter contained references to: Spice Girls "Last Time Lover" (song), Mika "Any Other World" (song), Dan Abnett "Traitor General" (novel), BBC "The Fast Show" (TV comedy) and BBC "Bottom" (TV comedy)… And typically most of my chapters contain this much non-Japanese crap in them. Because I lack originality.


	12. What They Say

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Language warning  
Long chapter warning (but it's okay, because plot happens)**

**Recap:** Hiei and Botan learned that Yukina has been kidnapped by Tarukane and is being tortured for her tears, Hiei continued his education of Botan in the ways of lurv, and Yusuke settled in for another night at Kurama's place, where Kurama began explaining their upcoming mission to him.

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**Chapter 12: What They Say**

Botan's mouth had been hanging open so long that her throat had become uncomfortably dry. Her eyes were almost as bad, because she was barely blinking as she stared at Hiei's back. He was standing by a broken section of wall, looking out towards the setting sun. At a quick glance he looked quite casual standing there, but after staring as long and hard as Botan had been, she could see that he was tense. He was wearing only his long pants, his upper body bared and every muscle visibly tight, sinews occasionally twitching by his neck or shoulders as though he was on the verge of pouncing at something. Which he may very well yet do, she thought, hunching her shoulders protectively over the still fragmented communication mirror she was cradling in her hands.

"Tell me more about Hiei and his sister and I won't call Kuwabara."

"Bribing a demon is not appropriate behaviour for a spirit detective."

"I'm not your average spirit detective, and you're not exactly an average demon."

Silence again filled the room – save for the faint whistle of the wind through the broken parts of roof and wall around them. Botan was too confused to think straight: it had been enough of a revelation to learn that Yukina was Hiei's sister and not his lover, but that she was also an ice demon – the opposite of him – and that she was being forced to cry by a human was simply too much. She wondered how it was that Hiei had not started yelling and breaking things yet.

"I first met Hiei about a year ago."

The audio feed the device in Botan's hands was picking up was almost too clear for comfort: it was as if Kurama and Yusuke were sat right in front of her.

"We happened upon each other when a demon – Yatsude – was causing trouble near my school. A friend of mine was kidnapped by Yatsude's aides and Hiei had been led to believe that Yatsude had gained strength recently from eating an ice maiden – his sister Yukina. Hiei did not willingly tell me the details of his reasons for wanting Yatsude dead. He was severely injured after fighting Yatsude's henchmen and then me, and during his sleep afterwards he spoke of Yukina, and I managed to convince him to tell me the missing details when he awoke. Hiei was born to the clan of ice maidens, who reside in the glacial village, a remote floating island within demon world that is isolated from all other life and home only to the ice maidens. Their clan consists entirely of women."

"Wait, what? Hiei's a girl?"

"No Yusuke, Hiei is a man. Which is why he was cast out of the ice village at birth. The ice maidens fear men, and when one is born into their clan they always cast him out immediately."

"Well I can understand them casting the little bastard out, he is a nasty traitor, but that still doesn't explain why he's a fire demon."

"That is part of his curse. The ice maidens reproduce automatically, giving birth only to female ice demons. On the very rare occasions that an ice maiden becomes impregnated by a man, she will give birth to a male child with the power of fire. The ice maidens consider these children to be cursed. They are very strong, very are violent and their powers of fire threaten to melt the very structure of the ice village itself, and so they are always cast out. Usually they die when they are cast out, but Hiei survived. He was raised by a band of thieves before they too cast him out for much the same reasons the ice maidens did: he was too strong, too impetuous and too untrustworthy. Hiei chose to have a jagan eye implanted through surgery, which robbed him of his strength and forced him to retrain. He is still not as strong as he was before the operation, and may never be that strong again, but he considered the sacrifice to be his punishment because he had lost the hiruiseki gifted to him by his mother upon his birth. He got the third eye implanted to help him find the stone again, but, try as he might, he could never trace it. He did, however, manage to locate the elusive ice village with the aid of his jagan eye, and he returned there in search of his mother. When he got there he learned that she had passed on, but that he had a twin sister: Yukina. He sought her out, but never revealed himself to her. He considers safe-guarding her – albeit it anonymously and from a distance – to be his primary duty in life."

"Shit. So even Hiei has a weakness?"

"Everyone does. You have Keiko, I have my mother and Kuwabara has… Megallica… And Eikichi…"

Yusuke's laughter made the speaker of the communication mirror quiver in Botan's hands. It was a pleasant sound, but it did nothing to awaken her from her trance.

"So have you ever met Yukina?"

"No. My knowledge of her is limited to what Hiei, and now Koenma and his sources, have told me about her. I have now seen her face though. I have a picture of her here from Koenma – as you can see, there is little family resemblance between the siblings."

"No shit, she's really pretty!"

Botan tensed as Hiei let out a particularly animalistic growl. He did not move, but she held her breath and remained tense for several seconds regardless in anticipation of him rounding on her and tearing apart the device in her hands.

"This is like a bedtime story: it's beauty and the beast!"

"I'm glad you're taking a light-hearted approach to this, Yusuke. The man who is imprisoning Yukina – Gonzo Tarukane – is a famous criminal whose reputation precedes him across all three worlds: human, demon and spirit. He will have some powerful and conniving demons in his employ, and reaching Yukina will be no easy task."

"I've seen you fight Kurama, I reckon the two of us together can take on anything the bastard sends our way."

"Your confidence is inspiring. I suggest we leave in the morning. It's quite far from here, but I have a map of bus routes and I have planned our journey out already."

"Great. Hey, you're more organised, smarter and way, way stronger than Botan: maybe you should replace her as my assistant on a permanent basis?"

"…I don't think so, Yusuke. Please don't misunderstand me: I have no desire to ally myself with spirit world, least of all to pursue and battle demons stuck in the living world, just like myself. I am only doing what I must to clear my name of the charges levied against me for the theft and misuse of the Forlorn Hope."

"…You're a real ray of sunshine, you know that?"

"It's not personal, Yusuke. You seem like a very honourable, loyal and reliable friend, but, as a spirit detective, you are standing opposed to me and my kin."

"I guess so."

"Will you be staying here again tonight?"

"Um…"

"It's perhaps easier if you do. That way we can be sure we catch the right bus together."

"Right."

"Switch it off."

Botan tensed again at the sound of Hiei's voice, surprising herself as she did so as she had been sure that she had already been as tense as she could possibly be. Kurama and Yusuke continued making idle chat about Yusuke's school still being shut and Kuwabara's inevitable curiosity after they set out on a mission without him, but their casual words suddenly seemed painful to listen to.

"Switch it off!"

Botan yelped and began frantically pushing at buttons on her communicator in an attempt to silence it. She sighed in relief when she finally managed to cut Yusuke off mid-sentence and she began to relax, only to yelp out in alarm again when Koenma's voice began emanating from the communicator.

"What is wrong with you, ogre?" he said. "You never get it right!"

"I'm sorry Sir!" George replied.

"Switch that fucking thing off!" Hiei roared, rounding on Botan with a look she was sure could have killed a weaker soul than her own.

She began fumbling with the switches again and, after twice more flicking through fragmented parts of Yusuke and Kurama talking and Koenma and George arguing, she eventually found a dead line and the room was silent once more. She carefully placed the device down before daring to look at Hiei again. In the dusky conditions of the unlit room, his eyes appeared to be glowing, and his shoulders were again heaving from his deep, laboured breathing.

"We…" she began weakly. "We have to get out of this city. If the SDF catch you Hiei, they'll…"

"They'll what?" he echoed, stalking away from the opening in the wall.

He arced around her in a strange action that made her feel as though she was a deer being hunted by a half-starved hound that was trying to corner her and preparing to move in for the kill.

"Hiei, Lord Koenma showed you great clemency when he allowed you to accompany Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama on the mission to this castle," she said carefully. "You broke your promise, you betrayed his trust, and he will not be so lenient again. He gave you a second chance and you ruined it. He won't give you a third chance. If the SDF find you Hiei, they will probably kill you on sight."

"Hn."

Botan sighed.

"Is that really all you have to say for yourself?" she asked, pushing herself up to her feet.

"What else should I say, ferry girl?" he spat angrily. "You've got that stupid smug look on your face again, I suppose you want me to admit defeat. You want me to tell you that you and your stupid little ferry girl guidebook were right about me, is that it?"

Botan's face dropped. That was the last thing she had expected him to say. Was that really all that he was thinking after everything they had just overheard?

"Hn, you were only half right anyway," he growled. "You were about my mother not loving me, but I wasn't the one who left her, she was the one who abandoned me. Now you know the truth. Now you know everything. Are you satisfied now, you interfering hag?"

Botan shook her head. How could she be satisfied with something like that?

"You misunderstand me, Hiei," she said softly. "I know you despise my kind, but surely even you must acknowledge that, for all our faults, we ferry girls are not vindictive creatures. Another soul's suffering could never be a source of joy for us."

"Hn, spirit world stock answer number 138," Hiei grumbled. "Did they teach you specific responses to deliver to unredeemable souls like mine or did they simply give you a formula to apply to any situation and create your response from?"

Botan shook her head again.

"Hiei, I feel no satisfaction or joy out of learning what I have tonight," she insisted. "And I know that my guidebook advised me to offer you a hug and a shoulder to cry on, but I think you're far past that point. I'm sorry that you've felt so much pain in your life, but you should know that just because you have experienced a lot of pain and faced many hardships and overcome terrible rejection, you should not always expect to face those same obstacles in your future. Nobody is destined to be miserable forever Hiei. Nobody is in charge of your happiness but you. If you choose to be angry, bitter and hated, then that is all you ever will be. But it doesn't have to be that way."

"You can stop the spirit world bullshit philosophising, it won't work on me!" he warned her. "You don't know what pain, hardship or rejection is! How could you? You said yourself: you've never been alive to feel how could you possibly understand any emotion, negative or otherwise?"

"What do you want me to say to you, Hiei?" she asked. "Do you want me to tell you that some lives are filled only with pain and misery? Because I can tell you that honestly if that's all you want to hear. Some lives – demon and human – are so terrible that death is the most pleasant experience for them. I've collected souls of children who have been abandoned, starved, beaten and abused. I've collected souls of people who have witnessed misery and suffering their entire lives and have died slowly and painfully at the hands of the one person they loved and trusted. There is plenty of pain and misery in life if you actively seek it out, Hiei. But there is also plenty of joy and kindness if you look hard enough for it. Some souls are born victims, just like you were. Whether they remain that way for the rest of their lives or not is a decision that only they can make."

"Are you implying that I chose the life I've had?"

"Of course you did."

Botan screamed out in shock as she suddenly found herself airborne. She did not see what Hiei did exactly, and it was not until she had fallen to the ground and laid there long enough for the dust to settle and her body to ache on the points she had landed on that she noticed the newly created hole in the floor of the room.

"You're treading on very dangerous ground, ferry girl," Hiei's voice growled at her.

She looked about but could not see him anywhere. She could not decide if she was pleased that he had vanished or not, as she was terrified that he was about to kill her. She knew that she was risking invoking the full might of his wrath with her words, but she had to persist. She had a point to prove, and she was not about to back down. Ordinarily she would be too terrified to continue as she was vulnerable to terrible physical torture in her human body, but three things were over-riding her fears and giving her the strength to continue: ferry girl duty, the fact that she was likely to die soon anyway and the idea that maybe if she finished what she had started she could help Hiei find some peace of mind.

Because apparently she cared about his happiness.

Ferry girl duty. She had been trained to help all lost souls, and this was almost the same situation. She was just acting on instinct, nothing more.

"It's easy to be hated," she said, grabbing at the rubble about herself. "It's much easier to make someone hate you than it is to make them love you. And you can make everyone hate you, but you can't make everyone love you."

She strained to pull herself back up to her feet, wincing and twisting awkwardly as she felt the pain of multiple points of injury. She quickly sought out the flattest piece of rock she could find and sat onto it.

"It's also easier to hate than to love," she continued, placing a hand over a bloodied scratch on her forearm. "Hating doesn't require any effort. You don't need a reason to hate. Love is much more difficult. You have to trust, you have to respect, you have to honour and you have to care. With hate you just have to hate. Much easier."

Botan lifted her hand. She had done a rather poor job of healing herself, but she had multiple wounds to tend to, and she did not want to waste all of her energy fixing just one. It would be wiser to reduce the pain and extent of each wound first and then use what energy she had left to completely heal the most inconveniencing wounds.

"Hn, idiot," Hiei's voice answered her.

She did not bother trying to locate him. He sounded about half the length of the room away from her, in the approximate direction of the doorway to the stairwell, and that was all she needed to know.

"Hate is every bit as consuming and important as love," he said.

"I never said that it wasn't," she replied. "I merely pointed out that it was the path of least resistance."

"I've always been hated," he said. "But unlike you, unlike the idiots of spirit world and the miserable cretins of the human world, I don't care about it. Anyone who meets me hates me. I see it as my duty to give them a reason to feel that way. Contrary to what you think, ferry girl, hate needs reasons and motivations and other emotions to keep it alive too."

"I don't hate you Hiei."

"That's because I've given you plenty of reasons to!"

Botan's head jerked up and she frowned in confusion. She looked about herself and finally spotted Hiei, standing slightly to one side of the doorway to the stairwell, his position somewhere between a fighting stance and a poised-and-ready-to-flee pose. It almost looked comical.

"I said I don't hate you Hiei," she called over to him, being sure to put extra emphasis on the word "don't".

He opened his mouth and there was short pause before he made a strange noise and then closed his mouth again, scowling at her angrily.

"People always hate me when they first meet me," she added. "But my approach to that is the opposite of yours. I like to prove them wrong. I like to give them reasons not to hate me."

"People hate you because you're annoying, stupid, clumsy, nosy, interfering and redundant!" Hiei shot back.

Botan sighed.

"No, they hate me because I'm death," she said.

Hiei visibly twitched.

"Nobody likes seeing a ferry girl, because it's confirmation that they're dead, and most souls are in denial during those first moments of death," she continued. "They hate me because they think it's my fault that they're dead. I take them to the afterlife, and once there, they can never return to their former life, and so they blame me because I was the one who took them there."

"…That's not why I hate you," he growled in a low voice that was barely audible.

"That's something of a contradiction of terms isn't it?" she muttered, lowering her eyes to a tear in her pants and poking at it experimentally. "Though perhaps not, since you claim to enjoy hating things. I suppose you hate so much, you even hate your own lover."

She lifted her head again and fixed her eyes onto Hiei. She had not considered anything that she had said before then to have over-stepped any sort of boundary between them, but she knew that her last statement had been a move too far. She was not about to take any of it back though: it was only the truth, after all.

"You're not my lover in the conventional sense," he reminded her. "And even when I have taken a lover in the conventional sense, I've never cared for her. That's not how demon world love works."

Botan thought about making a snide remark about Hiei yet again hiding behind the term "demon world love" but changed her mind when she started to hear music and voices drifting up from the city below.

"Your nightly worship festival begins again," Hiei drawled sarcastically.

"I might join them," Botan said haughtily. "Tomorrow will be a busy day if Yusuke and Kurama are going on that mission, I might as well have some fun whilst I still can."

Botan spent some time healing the remainder of her wounds, feeling quite pleased with herself when she managed to get most of them down to mere red marks that barely hurt at all. She was so pleased with herself that she at first did not hear the strange sound coming from the other end of the room: and when she did hear it, she almost could not believe it. She turned her head towards Hiei, and looking directly at him she was able to confirm that her ears were not deceiving her: though she had to wonder if her sanity was slipping. Or maybe his sanity was slipping.

Hiei was openly laughing.

"Hiei?" she said, feeling more afraid of him now than she had when he had seemed ready to kill her. "A-are you feeling alright?"

"Never better, ferry girl," he replied, grinning at her in a way that was equally as disconcerting as his hearty laughter had been. "Can you hear what I can hear?"

Botan paused, listening carefully. She sensed that he was asking her a trick question, but she tried to consider it regardless.

"All I can hear is the music from the festival," she eventually concluded.

"Exactly," he replied, his grin widening to give the illusion that his face had been split in two.

"It… Sounds like a different sort of music they're playing?" Botan tried. "More drums and punctuated singing?"

"Well done," Hiei said. "Perhaps you're not so hopelessly ignorant as you appear to be. I think I'll join you at the festival. It promises to be the perfect distraction to get me through tonight."

"…Why? What does this sort of music and chanting actually mean?"

"Someone wishes to challenge you for the position of ruler of the city."

"Oh, well that would explain why they're yelling "cut down the–" wait, what?"

"You've been issued a formal challenge for your leadership of this city. If you don't accept it by dawn, the challenger will win by default and evict you from this castle by force."

Botan gasped.

"They can't do that!" she wailed. "I never even wanted to be the leader of this city in the first place! It was all just a misunderstanding!"

"You attended the ceremony they held to induct you into the role," Hiei pointed out. "You formalised your position, and now you're formally being challenged."

"What should I do?" she asked.

"There's only two things you can do," he replied. "Fight or surrender."

"Well then I surrender! I can't fight, and I don't even want to!"

"If you surrender, you must let the new leader kill you."

"What?"

"That's the only way leadership can be passed on: through death. Either you let him kill you or you fight him and whoever survives the fight takes over the city."

"A fight to the death?"

"It's the demon world way."

"I don't like the demon world way of anything!"

"I know. That's part of what makes this so damn funny."

Botan began panicking: what was she going to do? She could not fight a demon, but she was not willing to lay down and let one just kill her either. Why had she had not just smacked that stupid bird and taken back her Concentration Ring?

"What do you think, Hiei?" she asked, turning to him in the hope of getting an honest and constructive opinion from him.

"I think you're fucked, ferry girl," he replied, his grin widening again to become positively maniacal.

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Hiei was once more reminded of one of the delicate deer in the forests of demon world as he watched the ferry girl approach the fire, her eyes wide with fear. She had insisted on changing back into the ceremonial white dress and head wreath she had been gifted upon being crowned leader of the city of ghosts and apparitions, presumably because she thought dressing for the occasion might save her the trouble of facing what lay ahead of her.

"Lady Botan, welcome!" a young female leopard demon greeted her, smiling too cheerfully and bowing too steeply to be taken seriously. "Katsu here wishes to challenge you for the position of leader of the city. Do you accept his challenge?"

Hiei snorted quietly in amusement at the demon's name, but his demeanour quickly changed when an enormous wolf demon stepped forwards from the crowd. He was easily twice the height of the ferry girl – were he to stand up straight – his back hunched over and his knuckles almost dragging along the ground. His teeth were dirty and his eyes bloodshot, and he had the distinct look of desperation and unending viciousness about him.

"Do you accept my challenge, Lady Botan?" he asked.

Hiei almost collapsed when the idiotic ferry girl pulled a ridiculous cat face and pawed coyly at the air between them.

"Meow?" she whimpered.

Silence filled the air and hundreds of eyes fixed onto her in a way that told Hiei that, even if she was somehow able to defeat her challenger, the remainder of the citizens would slaughter her anyway for being such a fool. He sighed and then moved over to stand at her side.

"I think you're forgetting something, woman," he said, addressing the leopard girl.

"Oh?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.

"Yes, idiot," he replied. "The lady is my lover. Before anyone can fight her, they have to be able to defeat me, first."

Hiei did not bother looking round when his ear was slapped by blue hair as the ferry girl whipped around to stare down at him in shock.

"Well that is tradition," the leopard girl agreed.

Hiei nodded and then turned to the ferry girl.

"Stand back," he whispered to her.

She muttered something unintelligible, but stumbled back regardless. The others all moved back accordingly until there was a large space around the fire and only Hiei and the challenger were left standing there.

"You think you can defeat me, little man?" Katsu asked.

"Only too easily," Hiei flatly replied, drawing out his sword.

"You're using a sword?" Katsu asked, narrowing his eyes. "Aren't you going to use your powers?"

"I don't need to," Hiei replied.

"You arrogant bastard!"

Hiei smirked confidently. Katsu was strong in comparison to the average cretin in the city, but he was not strong enough to worry Hiei. In fact, he doubted he would even break a sweat fighting him. He contemplated feigning weakness and prolonging the fight to make the ferry girl worry, but it then occurred to him that he was not really sure why he would want her to worry, and so he decided against it.

He had enough problems plaguing his conscience without the ferry girl popping up and adding to them. He had to defeat Katsu, get through the night, plan for his chance to escape the next day when spirit world opened a breach in the barrier around the city again and make sure Yukina was freed from that human tyrant who had managed to get his filthy hands on her.

"Die!" Katsu hollered, charging at him at a speed that was painfully slow for a demon as fast as Hiei to witness.

Hiei sighed, almost bored by the lack of a challenge, and held his ground, waiting for the wolf to hurl himself at him and then slashing frantically at the air, being sure to cut the beast into as many pieces as possible before he was forced to leap back out of the way. As he had expected, Katsu fell to the ground, tried to stand and then fell apart, blood staining the ground around him. Hiei made to shake the excess blood from his sword but the leopard girl hurried forwards and offered to clean his weapon, bowing profusely as she did so. Realising that she was no threat, he decided to trust her with the sword and handed it over.

"You saved my life."

Hiei moved his eyes to the ferry girl, who had put a hand on his shoulder and had whispered her words so close to his ear, her lips were almost touching his skin.

"It was my duty," he replied.

"…It was?" she asked.

She straightened up again, looking confused and stupid.

"We're lovers," he reminded her.

"Yes, but I didn't think chivalry came into it," she replied.

Hiei was more insulted by her reply than he would ever admit to, but he hid the wound to his pride as best he could.

"You chose me as a partner, so all challengers must first prove they can beat me before they face you," he explained.

Her face twisted further and he could see that she understood even less about demon world culture than he had assumed she did.

"In demon world, any lasting partnership between lovers can only happen if the pursuer proves to their chosen one that they are worthy to be taken as a lover," he tried. "You wanted me for a lover, so you fought me and defeated me, and because you proved yourself to be stronger than me, I accepted you as a lover. Any challenger seeking to replace me as your lover or to replace you as leader of the city must first defeat me before they challenge you to any sort of fight."

"So you're pretending that I chose you so that I won't have to fight anyone and no-one will realise that I'm not actually a fighter?" she asked.

"Exactly," he replied.

"…And you're so vain and stubborn that you'd rather people thought I was stronger and more powerful than you than they thought that you had chosen me as your lover?"

"What?"

The ferry girl made a knowing, smug noise and smiled, her eyes rolling up towards the sky.

"What?" Hiei said again.

"It's not true of course…" she muttered. "Because actually, you chose me as a lover… And you are stronger than me, so even though we didn't fight, if we had, you would definitely have won…"

"I didn't choose you as a lover," he growled at her.

"Yes you did," she said.

"No I didn't. I'm just proving a point about what love actually is."

She lowered her eyes to him and gave him an almost sympathetic look, and he was strangely glad that the leopard girl returned at that moment, carrying his newly-polished sword.

"Here you are, Sir!" she said, holding it up on the flats of her hands.

"Hn," he grunted, snatching it from her hands.

"And may I just say Sir, you're very lucky to have such a powerful lover," she said.

Hiei paused, his sword half inserted into its scabbard.

"I've seen what Lady Botan is capable of," the girl whispered. "She's very strong!"

"Go away, or I will kill you," he whispered back, dropping his sword into its sheath noisily.

She leaned back, her eyes moving to the ferry girl.

"We were just discussing our love, actually," the ferry girl said. "We don't always agree on the definition of love."

Hiei growled but both girls ignored him.

"Well there's four definitions of the word "love", isn't there?" the leopard girl said.

"…Four…?" the ferry girl asked, glancing darkly at Hiei.

"Yes, four."

"I thought there were only three? Demon, spirit and human?"

"…What? No, there are four – unless you decree that there are three of course, Milady!"

The leopard girl hurriedly bowed to the ferry girl, who waved off her gesture dismissively.

"Four definitions?" she asked.

"Yes Ma'am," the leopard girl replied. "There's platonic love, like the way you love a friend, there's familial love, like the way you love your parents or your children, there's erotic love, like the way you love a lover and then there's romantic love, which is also how you love a lover."

Hiei swallowed carefully as the ferry girl turned on him, glaring at him with a look that was almost intimidating.

"Oh really?" she asked.

"No," he replied. "Here in demon world only erotic love exists."

"That's not true," the leopard girl said.

Hiei snarled at her and she cowered back from him fearfully.

"Hiei, that girl is a demon, of demon world, and she just said that romantic love is a type of love," the ferry girl said.

"That girl is also an idiot," he replied. "And she's talking about love across all three worlds. In this world, only the erotic kind exists."

"What about the familial kind?" the leopard girl whispered, pointing at a pair of lizard demons fussing over their child.

"In my experience, that doesn't exist here either!" Hiei snapped at her.

"But that's only in your personal experience," the ferry girl pointed out. "It looks like it does exist here for other people."

"And the platonic kind," the leopard girl added, pointing at a group of men sat in a circle playing some sort of drinking game and laughing heartily between themselves.

"Not in my experience is doesn't!" Hiei insisted.

"Not in your experience, but it does for others," the ferry girl said again.

"And the romantic kind," the leopard girl whispered.

Hiei balked when she began waggling her finger between him and the ferry girl.

"We're not romantic lovers," the ferry girl said, patting the leopard girl on the shoulder. "We're just erotic lovers."

"Oh," the leopard girl said. "I thought you were both."

"Oh no sweetie, there's nothing romantic going on here!"

The ferry girl laughed and Hiei had to turn away from her. He had always hated any mention of the word "romance", and frankly he was proud of himself for never having even attempted to indulge in anything remotely "romantic" in his life.

But it really pissed him off that the ferry girl did not think their relationship was romantic.

"Hiei?"

"Hn."

"Are you alright?"

Hiei jerked his shoulder from her as the ferry girl started to touch a hand to it. She had dismissed the leopard girl, and whilst he was glad to be rid of that idiot, it did now mean that he was alone with the ferry girl again.

"It's okay Hiei," she said quietly. "I understand that you hate romance. You probably don't even believe in it. It works for some people, but not for others. Disliking it doesn't make you strange or unique."

"I feel the same way about romance as you do about simple eroticism, woman," he replied.

"Well… Lately maybe I'm not as disgusted or opposed to that sort of love as I once was," she said.

Hiei smiled to himself. His plan to corrupt her seemed to be working.

"It's quite liberating, actually," she continued. "In spirit world, it's frowned about to just indulge in such affairs so casually, but despite what they say, I think the sort of loving you've been describing has it's own place amongst… The other definitions of love. It's less restricting because there's not the pressure of trying to be perfect for someone, or the fear that it might end. I know it will end and I know we're not perfect for each other, but it doesn't matter because neither of us are attached. Like you said, it will run its course and then we'll go our separate ways."

Hiei nodded, surprised to hear her speaking to frankly and to be demonstrating such a clear understanding of the points he had been trying to make.

"And it can be quite sweet, too," she added.

That sounded a bit more like the idiotic ferry girl he knew.

"Sharing everything. Sharing our bodies, sharing our food, sharing our… Thoughts and feelings…"

Hiei narrowed his eyes.

"Not quite, woman," he said, turning his head to look back over his shoulder at her.

"No I suppose not," she agreed. "Since you have no feelings to share."

"And you have no thoughts to share," he shot back.

To his surprise, she smiled.

"I'm going to ask you a question, and if you don't want to answer it, that's fine," she said.

"Your amateur philosophising doesn't count as thoughts of substance worthy of sharing," he said.

"No, it's not about that," she replied. "It's about the hirui stone your mother gave you. The one Kurama said you lost. He said you had that jagan eye implanted to help you find it. Did you ever eventually find it?"

"No," he replied.

He had thought that she might have asked about Yukina or one of his past lovers, so to hear her voice such a simple question was something of a relief.

"Do you have any idea why you can't find it?" she asked.

"The ice maidens hide precious stones by swallowing them," he replied. "Whoever has my stone has swallowed it. I won't find it until they choke it up."

"How did you lose it in the first place? Was it stolen from you?"

"Hn, not likely. I lost it accidentally, in a fight. It was cut from around my neck when my opponent tried to slit my throat and missed. It fell into a river and I spent days searching the water, but I couldn't find it."

"Someone else found it first?"

"Obviously. Demons were always challenging me to fights because of it. I was famous as a bandit carrying a priceless jewel, so I was hunted for it. I never thought I would lose it."

"It was an accident though."

"A lucky shot."

"So then why do you blame yourself so for losing it?"

Hiei turned fully around to face the ferry girl. She had that sympathetic, amateur psychotherapist look on her face again, and he sensed that she was building to something. He knew that he ought to just tell her where she could shove her questions and theories, but for some reason a part of him felt quite pleased to continue the conversation, and so he decided to indulge it for the time being.

"I was careless," he said. "The stone was important to me, looking after it was my responsibility, and I failed."

"And now looking after Yukina is your responsibility," she said.

"Exactly," he agreed. "But I won't fail at that."

"You know, it is sad that you've lost the stone and you can't find it," she said slowly. "But at the same time you should be pleased that you managed to hold onto it as long as you did. Weren't you just a baby when you were cast out of the ice village? And even though you were just a baby you managed to defend the stone from thieves?"

"Yes."

"That's amazing."

"The bandits who raised me tried to take it daily, but I was usually too fast and too strong for them."

"…Usually?"

Hiei stopped. Before that day, he had only ever spoken to Kurama about any aspect of his life, and it had been strangely easy to talk about his past with the ferry girl so far; but she had just touched on a slightly sensitive subject. He did now know if she was aware of why he was silent or not, if she had deliberately backed him up into the corner he now found himself in, but either way he did not want to talk any more.

"I suppose that was why they eventually cast you out," she said when he did not answer her. "They couldn't get the stone from you, so they had no more use for you."

Hiei flinched slightly. Again he was unsure if she knew just what effect her words were having on him.

"They only kept me around because they thought one day they might manage to take it from me," he said. "And because I was small enough to fit into air ducts and fast enough to make a good decoy in a raid."

"Convenient then, for both of you," she said, sounding a little too casual. "You needed a family and they needed someone small and fast."

"I didn't need them," Hiei muttered.

"You were a baby," she pointed out. "You needed someone to feed you and wipe your bottom until you could do it yourself."

Hiei glared at her angrily but she looked strangely confident and unaffected.

"Would you say that you loved any of those bandits in the familial sense?" she asked. "Or perhaps even just in the platonic sense?"

"Absolutely not," he immediately replied. "I already told you that my heart does not suffer such foolish nonsense."

"Because of the curse, of course. What was it that you said? "A strong body, a determined mind and a numb heart"."

"Exactly."

"So you probably didn't really care when those bandits cast you out."

Hiei clenched his fists at his sides.

"What's your point, woman?" he asked tightly.

"I just wondered if you'd ever experienced any sort of family life," she said with a shrug. "You never felt a sort of brotherly bond with any of those bandits? Or perhaps even a sort of father-son bond with any of them?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but of them all, I found their leader the most tolerable. He taught me many things and in some ways he was like a father in my life, but I never cared for him."

"Never?"

"No."

"Because he cast you out?"

"No, because he hunted me for my hiruiseki too."

"So you couldn't even trust him. I can see why trust is an issue for you. Obviously he was never fast enough to catch you then?"

"He caught me many times."

The ferry girl's smile faded. She looked like she was starting to regret having been so insistently inquisitive, but Hiei had passed the point of logic: if she was going to persist with her interfering then she was going to have to deal with the consequences.

"They took it in turns to chase me," he continued. "They chased me for hours, sometimes days. I was considerably faster than them all, but – especially when I was very young – I was incapable of planning ahead. I could only run so long before I had to stop to drink, eat or just collapse from exhaustion. When they caught me, I had to fight. Sometimes I wanted to fight, sometime I didn't. I never wanted to fight the leader, I felt indebted to him because of the shelter and sustenance he had provided me with in my early days, and so I never did fight him. I found that the only way to stop him taking the stone was to curl over and just let him beat me until he tired himself out."

Hiei glared hard at the ferry girl, unsure if the paleness of her complexion and wideness of her eyes denoted fear, sadness or both.

"Is that what you wanted to hear, ferry girl?" he asked her.

She shook her head.

"Why don't you make yourself useful?" he said. "Gather some food. I need to stay by the communicator tomorrow, I won't be able to hunt, so we'll need provisions to see us through at least the next day. Take as much as you can, I'm going to get some water."

He did not wait for her to answer him, instead taking off in the direction of the river as fast as he could, hoping that he would find containers on the way there. Although he had meant to shock the ferry girl, he could not help but wonder why he had told her as much as he had, or why it had felt strangely easy to do so.

Something very strange was happening, and he hoped that it was just the effects of his concern for Yukina's welfare making him feel so unusual.

**

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**Next Chapter:** Revelations continue (on both sides) as the lines between demon world loving and spirit world love become increasingly blurred and the mission to rescue Yukina gets underway, with Yusuke and Kurama reaching Tarukane's mansion and facing off against the various fighters he has waiting for them. **Chapter 13 – Draining All Of Me**

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**A/N:** I'm taking another time out, this time to do some pimping. First of all, if you're looking for a place where you can discuss all elements of fanfiction with other authors, check out the forum linked on my profile page. Feel free to go on there and join the discussions, start some of your own and slap me with a stick if you see me on there anywhere – I probably deserve it.

Secondly, a reminder about my writing journal and that I have been posting previews of upcoming Yu Yu Hakusho fanfics on there. Advance previews of "In Your Shoes" and "Hands Clean" are already up there, over the festive period I will be adding outlines for "This Year's Love" and "Everything She Does", and in the new year I'll be posting details on a sequel I'm considering (provisionally entitled "Happy"), so consider this the chance to comment on that idea and help it live or die. For anyone interested who didn't get the link to the journal in my mail-round, my handle is Lucy_Dee, or else PM me and I will send you it (I don't want to post the link publicly).

Warning about the writing journal: it's unedited (so will contain typos and non-Americanised English) and completely uncensored, and some of the material (mainly "In Your Shoes" and the filthy jokes it contains) may offend, hence why all material is behind a cut.

And finally! If you celebrate it, have a good Christmas. If you don't, enjoy the free time off school/college/work.


	13. Draining All Of Me

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Mild sexual content warning (not enough to warrant upping the rating)  
- If that offends you, I wonder why you are reading a Romance/Drama fic…**

**Recap:** Kurama told Yusuke way more than he was ever meant to about Hiei's past and his relation to Yukina, and Botan and Hiei overheard the whole thing. Botan was challenged for her position of leader of the CGA but Hiei heroically(?) fought in her place. She then tried to counsel him on his past and winded up making him reveal even more upsetting details of it.

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**Chapter 13: Draining All Of Me**

"Is that what you wanted to hear, ferry girl?"

Botan hurriedly shook her head. It was not what she had wanted or even expected to hear. She could see faint traces of hurt and disappointment in Hiei's eyes, but mostly she could see the barely constrained rage building in his increasingly tense stance.

"Why don't you make yourself useful?" he said. "Gather some food. I need to stay by the communicator tomorrow, I won't be able to hunt, so we'll need provisions to see us through at least the next day. Take as much as you can, I'm going to get some water."

"Right, I–"

Botan stopped talking as Hiei vanished from her sight, small clouds of dust billowing around her ankles, emanating from the point he had launched himself from. She was still surprised that he had not killed her or at least broken something, since anger was the only emotion he really seemed to understand, and what they had just discussed had certainly left him very emotional. What he had said made sense, but at the same time it was almost too sad to think about. Botan had, of course, encountered plenty of souls with sad lives filled with pain, misery and rejection, but Hiei's stories of his past weighed on her mind far more heavily. She supposed that was because she was spending so much time with him and they were rapidly turning into his definition of lovers in that they were almost constantly pressed up against each other; and although she could not vouch for his thoughts or feelings, she knew that she was starting to dislike the times when they were not pressed up against each other, just as he had said was the case with "demon world loving".

She started towards the makeshift banquet table, almost walking into objects and bodies alike as her eyes remained focused on the point she had last seen Hiei. She supposed it was wrong to feel sorry for him – sympathy for the devil taken quite literally, she thought – but she found herself doing so regardless. He was a criminal, and her original reason for ending up where she was now was that she, as a law enforcer of spirit world, had been chasing after him with the intention of taking him back to prison. He was the epitome of everything she had been taught to hate, fear and fight against in demon world, and she the epitome of everything he loathed and rejected in spirit world, making them opposites with absolutely nothing in common.

Except for Maze Castle.

That was not really something to have in common. Though it was something they had done together. Together they had cleared the Gate of Betrayal, solved the mazes and found a compromise that had allowed them to survive together there: he supplied food and water and she transported them both and their supplies on her oar. When she had first discovered that she was stranded in the city of ghosts and apparitions she never could have imagined that she would end up forming an alliance with Hiei – least of all so quickly and so completely – and that he would be the one thing that kept her alive there. Thinking back to that first night she had encountered him trying to cut the tracking device from his leg, she was amazed that he had not killed her: the idea that he had actually sustained her life there was beyond comprehension.

And strangely, when she thought about the night she had found him trying to cut the tracking device from his leg, she felt as though it had happened a long time ago. Despite having existed for many centuries as a soul collector, the time she had spent in the city of ghosts and apparitions, in her human body and with Hiei felt like it had lasted a significant proportion of her existence. It almost felt like her time there would never end, like she would always live in the remains of Maze Castle, pretending to be the all-powerful leader of the city, with Hiei at her side educating her in his opinion of love.

His warped, cynical, selfish, unfeeling opinion of love.

It then occurred to Botan – as she tried for a third time to place a half loaf of bread onto a large empty platter – that she did not want to leave the city of ghosts and apparitions. Challenges to fights to the death were terrifying, eating unidentifiable creatures was sickening, bathing in rivers was uncivilised and indulging in casual sex with a demon was morally bankrupt behaviour: but there was something strangely inviting about life there. Maybe it was just that, she decided. Maybe it was just that, in her human body and in demon world, she was actually alive, as opposed to simply existing as she did in her ferry girl role. Maybe it was the fact that she could feel things physically, that her emotions were more exaggerated, that she could freely interact with others, that when someone looked at her they did not react negatively because their first impression was that she was there to take them to the afterlife.

Or maybe it was something far more sinister and complicated than that. The city of ghosts and apparitions was not so great, but living there was better than living in spirit world.

Demon world taint, demon world taint, Botan said to herself internally. She was affected by living there, eating the food and drinking the water. She was not herself. Nowhere was better than spirit world, least of all demon world. All her friends were in spirit world, and she had an important and valued role to fulfil there. She was welcome and cared for and understood there.

And in the city of ghosts and apparitions all she really had was Hiei.

She wondered how much of the supposed curse he had been born with was true and how much of it was just silly, out-dated superstition. If the ice maidens always cast out the male children born into their society – as Kurama had said they did – how could they really be sure that those children would grow up to be men with numb hearts, strong bodies and determined minds? Maybe they were wrong. Maybe Hiei was capable of feeling. Maybe he was capable of loving. Maybe all that anger he always demonstrated so readily was not so much anger as it was passion. Maybe he was just a passionate soul, not an angry one.

He was certainly a very passionate lover.

Botan knocked over a glass bottle of alcohol, which smashed on the ground by her feet, spraying its contents over her white boots: but she neither saw, felt, nor cared what had happened. Thinking about being with Hiei made her forget everything else and lose control of her ability to focus on anything else, including standing upright and walking in a straight line. She had heard humans talk of love making, but she was not really sure that what happened between her and Hiei could be described as that, since there was no love involved. It was, just as the leopard demon girl had described, eroticism. There was no romance and no devotion, it was just the active pursuit of carnal pleasure.

Except that she was actually starting to care about Hiei and his happiness, which suggested that it was actually something more than just a casual affair.

Botan wished she had not pried. She wished that she had not kept asking about Hiei's lost hiruiseki. She had only been trying to reassure him that he did not need to blame himself because she had been hoping that he might feel some sort of closure if she could help him see that. She had certainly never expected it to lead to him telling her about how the bandits who had raised him had mistreated him.

At least she now knew why he had those marks on his back: they were consistent with the sort of scars a body would bear from continual beatings. Most of them were barely visible, but that one by the base of his spine was quite pronounced, leaving Botan wondering both how young Hiei had been when he had suffered it and just how hard he had been hit to have been left with such a welt.

She then realised that she could not decide why it hurt her so much to think about Hiei being treated that way when he had been but a child: was it her ferry girl ingrained compassion or was it because she cared more specifically about Hiei himself?

"I can't fall in love with him," she muttered to herself. "He won't love me back… It will just run its course, like he said, and then we have to go our separate ways."

She sighed, loading a few more food items onto the platter she was holding. She was not really paying attention to her task and she had no idea if she was choosing an appropriate and balanced selection of food or not.

"I can't go on like this," she whispered under her breath. "Trying to understand what these strange thoughts and feelings mean… It's draining all of me."

**

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Botan had thought that it was not possible for her to be any more confused than she had been after Hiei had left her gathering food from the banquet, but, after he had eventually rejoined her with the water he had collected and they had returned to the top of the watchtower of Maze Castle, what ensued was so confusing, Botan was left wondering if she had somehow become drunk from the fumes of the alcohol being consumed by others at the banquet and was now imagining things.

"Are you–"

"Sh."

Botan clamped her jaws shut, feeling almost like a child for being admonished so. Hiei had his arms around her waist and his body was almost painfully close to hers. Her hands were on his shoulders and her feet were positioned alongside his, and together they were moving to the rhythm of the music still drifting up to them from the city below. His head was tilted slightly downwards, meaning that when she looked down to try to see his face all she actually saw was a white star set in black hair and the top folds of a white bandana beneath.

"I just–"

"Sh, woman."

Botan sighed. They were not even dancing. There was no pattern or sense to the movements they were making – though maybe there did not need to be. His hold was quite firm and his body felt tense to the touch, but his hands were resting flat against her back, and the only time his fingers gripped at her was during the infrequent moments when he would spin her around or dip her back and then pull her up again.

"I was–"

"Don't say a word."

Botan pouted. This was frustrating. She was not one for staying quiet, least of all when she was nervous, confused and her brain was exploding with unanswered questions.

"Hiei, I–"

"This isn't a time for talking, Botan."

Botan stiffened up so much at the sound of Hiei saying her name that he almost stood on her feet and had to tug her sharply to get her moving again. She had been under the belief that he did not actually know her name: and not because she had not told him it, rather because he had never bothered listening when she had done so, and he had seemed uninterested in referring to her as anything other than "woman" and "ferry girl". She had thought that he was deliberately not using her name as a means of distancing himself from her, but if that theory was true, what had changed now that he wanted to call her by her name?

Or was she just over-thinking the whole thing? With Hiei, she would never know, she thought miserably.

But she did not have long to dwell on her own inner musings as her attention was brought sharply back to her current predicament as Hiei began sliding his hands down her back and round over her hips. It was a gentle, slow and not particularly sensual gesture, but Botan found herself shivering in anticipation regardless. Whenever his hands were on her body and moving she knew that he was working towards doing something that was going to leave her feeling things she only ever could in her human body, and, as much as she appreciated that he did not rush her into something rough and unpleasant, she now just wanted him to speed up and get her to that point of ecstasy again. She moaned and gripped her fingers into him harder as his hands passed below the hem of her dress and touched the bare skin of her thighs, wriggling her hips slightly and she willed him to touch her more intimately.

He grunted something she thought might have been a few words, but she was too lost in the thrill of his touch to care for listening to his voice any more: he had been right after all, she thought, this was not a time for talking. She looked down at him, and again all she saw was the top of his head, a sight that was proving to be increasingly infuriating.

"Hiei," she gasped.

He kept his head down and said nothing, but she was determined and she was not going to give up.

"Hiei," she said as forcefully as she could manage.

He growled, the rumbling in his chest passing through to her body as he momentarily moved his body flush against hers, but still he said nothing.

"Hi–"

Botan was cut off halfway through as Hiei's head snapped up and he grabbed a hand at the back of her head, forcing her mouth against his. She had been trying to get him to look up so that she could kiss him, and although it had not happened entirely the way she had wanted it to, she did not complain, as once she had gotten over the initial shock of contact it quickly turned into a tender, deep and ardent kiss, and, once she had moved her hands to the sides of his face, his hand slid from the back of her head and down the length of her spine, igniting a burning flame of desire inside of her that was almost too hot to handle.

He braced one arm around her waist, holding her to him, and his other hand began moving up the underside of her dress, his heated fingers trailing over the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh. She moaned into their kiss, feeling almost light-headed in the knowledge that his hand was about to touch her in a way that always left her feeling indescribably wondrous and yet always still just a little bit eager for more afterwards. She supposed it was an addiction. But was she addicted to demon world loving, to eroticism, to Hiei or to all three? Did it matter?

Botan started to regain a little of her senses as she noticed that Hiei's hand had stopped its ascent, resting infuriatingly just short of the place she needed it to be. She tried to wriggle herself downwards to force herself against his touch but his arm locked around her waist held her in place and left her wondering if he had taken a tight hold of her in anticipation of this moment. When she realised that she could not force him to touch her she reluctantly pulled her lips from his and leaned far enough back to look him in the eye.

"Hiei?" she said softly.

"What?" he asked.

His voice sounded strange somehow, but her brain was beyond trying to figure out how or why.

"Is everything alright?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. "You?"

She moaned and wriggled her hips again to try to demonstrate her answer but he merely frowned in reply, looking mildly confused.

"You stopped," she managed to whisper.

"Stopped what?" he asked.

Botan started to realise then what he was doing. He was trying to make her ask for what she wanted, and even just the thought of saying it out loud made her start to blush.

"You know what," she said, pouting at him sulkily.

He arched his eyebrows expectantly, and for a horrible moment Botan was torn between her own repressed embarrassment and her burning desire for Hiei's touch.

"You know what!" she yelled, reaching down a hand and pushing his hand to where it needed to be.

Despite having pushed his hand and being able to anticipate the exact moment it would make contact, she still cried out in surprise and pleasure when she finally felt his fingers pressing against her. She put her arms around his shoulders and clung onto him as her legs began to buckle beneath her and she broke out into a sweat. She could hear and feel Hiei laughing, but she did not even care what was amusing him as he was starting to work his fingers under the elastic of her panties and she knew that she was only moments away from losing control of herself again.

She hoped that she could remember enough to ask him what was so funny afterwards.

**

* * *

**

Botan woke up to the sound of loud and obnoxious snoring, which seemed very unlike Hiei. She was, again, lying tangled up in him, and by the time she had reached a position where she could look him in the face his eyes were open and staring at her. She frowned slightly when the sound of snoring continued to fill the air, but when Hiei pointed towards the broken mirror on the back wall she realised that the audio on the communication mirror was on and it was broadcasting someone – probably Yusuke – snoring. She smiled and turned back to Hiei, who reached a hand up to the back of her head, pulling her down to kiss him.

She was a little surprised that kissing her was the first thing he did upon waking, but as it was an especially gentle and soft kiss she did not complain, as it was certainly a very pleasant way to start what could potentially be a difficult and stressful day. His hands smoothed over her bare skin and came to rest at the small of her back, and she could not help but think about how gentle he was being. And, as they continued their soft, slow kiss, she realised that he had been incredibly gentle the night before, too.

And, although she had been left squealing and writhing around in delight – several times over – they had not actually had sex.

Botan lifted her head, looking down at Hiei curiously. She wanted to ask him why he had not taken her as far as the full act of consenting sex, but she was both too embarrassed to ask such a question out loud and too afraid of appearing ungrateful, as he had done some quite spectacular things to her the night before, and all without ever removing his pants.

"I…" she began faintly. "I uh… I'm going to um… Make us some breakfast now…"

She sat up, shivering as she did so at both the loss of his immense warmth at her side and the feeling of his hands slipping down her body as she lifted away from him. She quickly grabbed up her dress and wrapped it about herself hastily and then made her way over to the plates of food she had gathered up the night before. Without really thinking about what she was doing, she haphazardly combined a few different food items onto one plate and filled a flask from the enormous tankard of water Hiei had collected. She still found it quite odd only using one plate and one water bottle to serve two people, but it was rapidly becoming something she also quite liked.

It was nice to feel so intimately close to someone.

She turned around and found Hiei sitting by the communicator. She paused, unsure if he wanted to eat beside it or not, but when he held up one hand and began beckoning her with his index finger she obediently walked over to join him, sitting down at his side and carefully placing down the items she had collected. She looked into his eyes as she finished her task, feeling surprised and slightly worried when she saw him grinning at her in an almost feral fashion, his finger still curling and uncurling in the air.

"Well ferry girl," he said in a low voice. "That's the second time I've done this with my finger and made you come."

Botan stared at his finger for a long time, memories of the night before seeping back into the forefront of her thoughts, steadily turning her face redder as they did so.

"That's not funny, Hiei," she muttered, lowering her head in an attempt to hide her embarrassment.

"I wasn't joking," he replied, finally ceasing his action. "I was just pointing out the facts."

Botan looked up through her hair to see that he was picking up another wet cube of fruit, the juices quickly running down the length of his fingers as he raised his hand towards her – reminding her rather alarmingly of something else from the night before. In a bid to block out the memories and stop the way they made her light-headed she leaned forwards and gently took the fruit into her mouth, feeling brave enough to actually take his fingers into her mouth and suck the food from them. As she began to lean back again and chew, his hand followed her, his fingers coming to rest along one side of her jaw and his thumb gently tracing the outline of her lips. She was expecting him to lean towards her and lick the wetness from the corners of her mouth as he had done before, but instead he just used his thumb to clear the excess juices. It was a pleasant sensation, but somewhat disappointing as she had been looking forward to potentially kissing him again.

Well she supposed she could just turn his little game against him: she picked up a piece of fruit and carefully took hold of it with her teeth, leaving it mostly protruding out of her mouth. She watched Hiei expectantly, the mild smirk that played on his lips telling her that he seemed to quite like her decision to play games with him. He raked his fingers into her hair, moving his hands to the back of her head and gently tilted her head back, rising up onto his knees and leaning over her to seal his mouth over hers and claim the fruit from her. She closed her eyes and relaxed her jaws, the feeling of his tongue sliding between her lips and encasing the fruit making her feel strangely relaxed.

He was right, she thought: she did need to be pressed up against him at every moment and she did loathe the times when that was not the case.

**

* * *

**

"We have to get off."

Yusuke moaned out a noise and was on his feet before his eyes had fully opened and focussed. He staggered towards the front of the bus, following Kurama's brilliant red mane as it moved ahead of him. He rubbed lazily at his eyes, grunting out an incoherent "thank you" when he heard Kurama say the same to the bus driver upon exiting the bus. He stumbled down the steps and off the bus, stretching his arms high above his head and yawning openly as the bus began to pull away again.

"You slept almost the whole way here," Kurama said.

"Yeah, I didn't sleep much last night," Yusuke replied, lowering his arms and opening his eyes.

Kurama muttered something about pillows and his hair but Yusuke did not clearly hear it and did not bother asking about it when he saw where they were.

"Hey, fox boy, is this a joke?" he asked, his eyes suddenly wide open and as he looked about himself.

"Tarukane's mansion is located at the top of the hill," Kurama casually replied, pointing into the thick of the woodland ahead of them.

Yusuke looked out in the direction he had indicated, squinting against the sun and failing to see anything other than an endless expanse of wilderness.

"I'm really more of a city person…" he muttered. "Damn Koenma, always sending me out to creepy, demon-filled forests in the middle of nowhere…"

Kurama smiled sympathetically.

"It is a little remote, I agree," he said. "But don't let that fool you: this place is a hive of criminal activity and there are countless demons in residence around here, so we must proceed with caution and be prepared for an ambush. It's likely that Tarukane already knows we are here."

"Already?" Yusuke echoed. "But we just got off the bus!"

"These woods have eyes and ears," Kurama replied.

Yusuke's face dropped and he distinctly saw Kurama give a small twitch of one eyebrow.

"Not literally," he added quietly. "It's just a figure of speech."

"I knew that!" Yusuke said, pretending to look casual.

Though honestly, he had not been so sure: memories of those demon bats in the forests around Genkai's temple and the cultivated humans in Maze Castle were still far too fresh in his mind, so the idea of a forest of trees with eyes and ears was not really so ridiculous in his mind.

"Let's just get on with this," he said. "As soon as we get Yukina back, we can work on getting Botan back."

"Right," Kurama agreed.

Together they started along the path that led into the trees. Yusuke was quite casual about the initial walk, but, from the corner of his eye, he could see Kurama arming himself with his Rose Whip, a clear sign that he was expecting trouble, since he rarely openly carried a weapon. As they walked, it occurred to Yusuke that he really did not know very much about Kurama, and after being betrayed by Hiei during his last mission as spirit detective, he realised that the same thing could happen to him again on this mission with Kurama: but he tried to push that suspicion from his mind, focusing on the fact that Kurama had always kept any promises he had made and that he was too attached to his life as Shuichi Minamino to risk losing it by cheating spirit world.

He did secretly wish that he had taken Kuwabara with him though. And that thought made him realise something else: he did not really know Kuwabara very well either. Yusuke had only really noticed him at his funeral, and they had only really spoken and made a connection during their time at Genkai's temple when they were attempting to become her apprentice. Kuwabara had been quite helpful and fundamental in Yusuke winning the tournament, and, when he thought hard about it, he had never really given Kuwabara any reason to like or trust him, and yet he had. Yusuke supposed he ought to apply Kuwabara's logic to his current predicament and trust Kurama.

They moved through the forest in silence, partly because they were both listening for any potential pursuers but mostly because Kurama did not initiate any conversation and Yusuke could not think of anything to say to him. As they neared what the map told them was about the halfway point from the bus stop to Tarukane's mansion, the silence between them was broken when a man in a suit stepped out onto the path ahead of them, seemingly from nowhere. Kurama and Yusuke both stopped and when Yusuke glanced at him Kurama gave a small shake of his head, his eyes darkening and his grip on his weapon tightening.

"You boys are a long way from home aren't you?" the man called over to them. "Shouldn't you both be at school at this time of day?"

"It's Saturday, dumbass!" Yusuke shouted back.

"Smooth," Kurama muttered under his breath.

"If he was a human, he'd know we don't go to school on a Saturday!" Yusuke pointed out.

Kurama nodded and together they started to charge towards the man, who began transforming into a multi-legged demon.

"See?" Yusuke said to Kurama.

He could tell by the look of strained patience on Kurama's face that he had already known that the man before them was not human, but he felt the need to justify himself regardless. Working together they made short work of cutting down the demon and moving on again, this time at a slow running pace. Neither of them had discussed the need to speed up, but they seemed to both understand that moving slowly would likely only draw out more and more such demons trying to stop their progress, and it was imperative that they reached the mansion as soon as possible, for Yukina's sake.

As the mansion finally came into their sights, a gang of twenty or so demons of negligible power began charging towards them.

"Damn it…" Yusuke sighed. "It's cultivated humans at Maze Castle all over again!"

Kurama smiled at him.

"As I recall, you escaped the worst of that hindrance," he pointed out.

Yusuke smiled back, but before he could even think of a witty retort he was forced to leap into action fighting back their attackers. They were numerous but no real challenge, and Yusuke silently hoped that everything in their path to Yukina would be as simple to overcome.

**

* * *

**

Hiei tensed involuntarily as Botan's thumb came to rest against the welt in the small of his back. She left it there for some time, much to his annoyance, and with her other hand, she began tracing the outlines of the other imperfections in his skin with her fingertips. With the exception of the one, especially deep, wound her thumb was touching, none of them really felt any different when she touched them, it was more the fact that she was touching them that was bothering him.

"Why are you highlighting my weaknesses?" he eventually snapped.

"No…" she whispered softly.

"It was not a yes or no question I asked you, woman!" he pointed out, glaring over one shoulder at her.

"These are not your weaknesses," she said. "They're just lines… In the story of your life."

Hiei frowned at her, waiting for her to provide him with a more substantial answer than that, but instead she leaned forwards and gently touched her lips to one of the marks by his shoulder-blade. He turned his head away, looking out over the city again, trying to maintain some self-control as he felt her soft, soft lips touching at each of his scars in turn. She had started up at his shoulders, but she was progressively moving downwards, and as she neared the middle of his back he gripped a hand at the hollow window frame in front of him, his fist closing in an explosion of dust as he inadvertently crushed an entire brick.

"You don't know what you're doing," he said.

He was telling her that because he hoped it was true. It was quite possible that she did know what she was doing, that she was deliberately acting the way she was, but he could not understand why she would and so he told her, and inwardly he repeatedly told himself, that she was not behaving that way deliberately.

She was acting like she cared, and that was wrong, because nobody cared. Nobody ever had cared, and often even Hiei himself did not care, so why would a ferry girl who had been instrumental in his arrest by spirit world care in the slightest?

And it genuinely did seem as though she did not hate him. He had given her plenty of reasons to, and again he expected everyone he encountered to hate him. He had never met anyone who had liked him apart from possibly Kurama, and just as he had never really known or understood how to handle Kurama, he had no clue how to deal with Botan if she started liking him too.

Sex was one thing but actually sharing an acquaintance?

When he thought about being liked, Hiei felt strange. He wondered if others felt the way he did now when they learned that someone liked them. Some people were liked by many others: did they constantly feel like he felt now?

"Relax Hiei," Botan whispered.

Her breath cooled a still damp kiss on his spine, and again he wondered if she had done that deliberately or not. Did she have any clue about what she was doing to him? And which was really worse: her being clueless about what she was capable of or her intentionally acting the way she was?

"You're always looking into the bottom of your teacup and seeing the reflection of a bow and thinking it's a snake."

Hiei regained some of his senses then and began to admonish the ferry girl for once more resorting to ridiculous and redundant clichés to make her point – but his voice broke off into a startled gasp as her lips pressed against the skin on either side of the deepest scar on his back and she dipped her tongue into the old wound, licking along the length of it. For several seconds he felt slightly off-balance, and he could almost hear the blood draining from his brain and moving to another part of his body. Once he had recovered from his initial shock he turned around, finding her knelt down low on the ground, her hands resting in her lap and her large pink eyes looking up at him as dolefully as before.

He touched a hand to the top of her head and at almost the same moment she placed her hands on his thighs. He knew – without even bothering to read her mind – what she was thinking, and that was certainly not something she could have learned or been encouraged to think about in spirit world, which could only mean that she did know what she was doing. She knew exactly what she was doing. And being with her was becoming an increasingly pleasurable experience, one that he was not quite ready to end.

But if the barrier around the city came down and the spirit world Special Defence Force came to take her back, there would be nothing he could do to stop her leaving him.

Unless he managed to get out of the city before the spirit world squad arrived and took Botan with him.

As she began unfastening his belts Hiei gently stroked the top of her head and growled appreciatively: she was far from perfect and never the sort of creature he would have willingly chosen as a lover, but she was certainly doing a good job of fulfilling his every need – possibly even more so than any other he had been with before.

And he was definitely looking forward to what she was about to do for him.

**

* * *

**

"…Did you just grab his crotch?"

"I had to be sure."

Kurama gave Yusuke a disapproving glance.

"It's actually a dude," Yusuke said, before pouncing at the demon named Miyuki again.

Kurama patiently allowed Yusuke to fight Miyuki alone, choosing to remain back because he was not needed and because he needed a moment to regain his composure: Yusuke was not exactly the most orthodox of fighters, and seeing him grope a demon in denial about his gender was something Kurama believed he would probably never forget. Miyuki began berating Yusuke for questioning his questionable identity and Yusuke very tactfully told him to "can it".

Kurama sighed. Yusuke was at least a strong and effective fighter, he told himself, and they had made good time getting into Tarukane's mansion, neither suffering significant injuries fighting off the demons they had encountered so far. He hoped that the rest of the mission went as smoothly and quickly, and he hoped that Yukina had not been too badly hurt.

And again he wondered if Hiei knew what was happening and how he felt about it all.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter: **(Ahem, I haven't written it yet, but I think it will go something like…) Hiei and Botan continue talking about and doing love, Kuwabara has a vision, and Kurama and Yusuke reach the final obstacle keeping them from Yukina: the Toguro brothers.** Chapter 14 – Hard to Believe**

**

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**

**A/N:** I should get at least one more chapter up before Hogmanay but after that it may be about a week before I post again. Not sure about the rest of the world, but Hogmanay is a big deal where I come from.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. I'm not giving away any plot, but I will again say that this, the second half of this story, does get progressively darker and less pleasant.


	14. Hard to Believe

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

And, although they are not specifically referenced, they did heavily influence the first chunk of this chapter, so:  
_I Want Love_ by Elton John  
_Wuthering Heights_ by Emily Bronte

**Recap: **(I don't think very much happened… Again…) But basically, things got hot(ter) and heavy(ier) between Hiei and Botan and Yusuke and Kurama reached the periphery of Tarukane's mansion in their bid to rescue Yukina.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 14: Hard to Believe**

For the first time since before the invasion of the living world by the Makai insects, Botan felt totally relaxed and completely at peace. She and Hiei were both naked and they were pressed up against each other, and it felt right. It was the definition of demon world love personified, and perhaps it was almost the same as plain old lust, but regardless of what else it could or could not be likened to, it was definitely right, and it was something that was definitely worthy of being called love.

It was a different kind of love, but it was definitely love.

Through the communicator she could hear Koenma and George commentating on Yusuke and Kurama's progress through Tarukane's mansion. She never had managed to return a picture to the giant mirror, but by wiring her communicator to the mirror's controls, she had somehow managed to create a bugging device for any spirit world communicator, including the one Yusuke carried and the one in Koenma's office. She knew that Hiei was listening for the moment Koenma despatched the Special Defence Force to open a breach in the barrier around the city, at which point they would have to flee as quickly as they could.

She hoped the city was not destroyed, as she did not like the idea of the citizens within it all being killed needlessly and she was also worried about exactly how she and Hiei would get past the Special Defence Force and out of the breach without being stopped or shot down. It was imperative that they did make it out though, as Botan suspected that Yukina's freedom might depend on Hiei assisting Yusuke and Kurama at some point.

But, most of all, Botan wondered what Hiei would do once they had ensured Yukina's safety.

She slowly sat up, and she was not entirely surprised when he sat up behind her, keeping his chest pressed against her back. Because of his position, he was just beyond the periphery of her vision, and only if she turned her head could she see the peaked wisps of his blue-black hair over her shoulder.

"We ferry girls aren't ever supposed to want something for ourselves," she said slowly, looking down at her own hands. "So if I do now want something for myself, what do you think that means? Does it mean that I've been a human for too long? Will it stop when I lose this body? Or does it mean that I've become corrupted somehow and that I'm beyond repair?"

"Hn, you think too much," Hiei muttered into her shoulder.

She paused until her body settled down from the initial thrill of feeling the warmth of his breath against her bare skin.

"But I've never wanted anything for myself before now," she insisted. "And now I do. I want it so badly I almost feel angry knowing that I probably won't get it. Have you ever felt that way about anything?"

"Hn."

When Hiei said no more after what seemed like a reasonable wait for him to respond Botan sighed emphatically.

"That was a silly question, wasn't it?" she said, smiling wryly. "Of course you've never wanted something you've been unable to get. You said yourself: here in demon world, you just take something when you want it. There's no longing, no waiting, no uncertainty."

"I want love."

Botan froze. Had she heard correctly?

"But it's impossible."

"I, uh…"

Botan was, once more, speechless. She was sure that Hiei was the only soul she had ever encountered with the ability to leave her that way.

"I'm reckless and irresponsible," Hiei continued. "And I'm dead in places other souls feel alive and free."

"I thought you… Didn't believe in love, per se," Botan said slowly. "You just want demon world loving, right?"

"It's the only type of love I've ever known," he replied. "I can't love any other way. I don't feel enough to love any other way."

"Do you want…?"

Botan could not make herself finish her question, but she desperately wanted to know if Hiei did, on a deeper, repressed level, believe in and perhaps even want to love in a more traditional, romantic way – the way she wanted to love him.

"Your way of loving is all about feeling, and I don't feel anything," he said.

"May-maybe you do feel something," she tried. "Maybe you just don't know how to express yourself because you've never been given that opportunity."

"I'm scarred in more places than you can see with your eyes, ferry girl," he replied.

"What do you mean?"

"The oldest and deepest of my scars are around what's left of my heart, and over time they just get deeper and tougher. One day they will consume me completely, and I welcome that moment."

"Welcome it? You're troubled by feelings you don't understand then? A part of you does want love, but because you don't understand it and you have abandonment and trust issues, you're troubled by that desire?"

Botan felt like she was grasping at straws and she hoped that it was not obvious in her voice.

"I do want love," Hiei replied, making her smile optimistically. "Just a different kind."

Botan's smile vanished.

"I don't want the sort of love that you do," he continued. "I don't want to be broken down, closed in, tied down and committed eternally. I want the sort of love that doesn't mean anything. It's love on my terms. After everything I've learned in my life, I know that it's the only kind of love I can enjoy. Do you understand?"

"No!" Botan moaned. "What you're describing is heartless! How can you be contented with something so shallow? You are capable of caring Hiei, if you weren't, Yukina's current predicament wouldn't be bothering you, but it is, so you are! If you can care, you can love! The proper way!"

"I carry too much baggage," Hiei said softly. "I've seen too much hurt, betrayal and tragedy. I don't believe in love the same way your open-minded, naïve, optimistic and inexperienced heart does."

"But love is the most wonderful thing in life… It's the reason why life is superior to death!"

"It's easy for you to talk that way. You don't understand the pain of rejection, the agony of betrayal and the lasting wounds of learning that you are unloved and unwanted everywhere you turn. You believe in romance because you don't know any better. It's just a nonsense fairy tale, invented in the simple minds of fools and spread amongst the masses to inspire and encourage, but ultimately it just causes disillusionment and discontent."

"Hiei, it doesn't have to be that way…"

"I know better than you do, ferry girl. I've lived long enough and been disappointed often enough to know that it's all a lie. Clean, smooth and sweet romantic love is a lie. All that is real is the rough and ready kind we share. It's intense, it's satisfying, it's involved: but best of all, it doesn't last."

Botan wished that Hiei would stop reminding her that "demon world loving" did not last.

"It runs its course and then it just ends," she said tightly.

"Exactly," he growled, gripping her upper arms and dragging the tip of his nose against her bared back.

"What if one of us doesn't want it to end?" she asked.

His grip tightened slightly, almost to the point of being painful, and he pulled his head away from her. She wished that she could see his face to gauge his reaction to her question, but as he typically hid his true feelings behind sarcastic smirks and disparaging sneers, she doubted seeing his face then would really give her much indication of how he really felt about the question she had just asked of him.

"Which one of us doesn't want it to end?"

He had spoken so quietly, Botan had barely heard his words. She paused long enough for his whispered question to echo around her head several times before taking a breath to answer him.

"Neither of us, I suppose," she said. "We both understand that this is demon world loving, and it doesn't last. I was just thinking that maybe it might end before one of us is really ready for it to end. And what if one of us wants it to last a little bit longer? Can we just accept that it's over and move on?"

"Of course we can," he replied. "There's no deeper attachment. We move on, and we remember only the highs of the pleasure we felt when we were together. It's simple."

Botan was not so sure that it was simple, and she thought that even Hiei had a trace of doubt in his voice, but if his insistence on being unfeeling and distrusting was any indication, he would never want to commit to anything more substantial than the "love" they currently shared anyway.

"Simple," she said flatly. "Sure."

"There's an understated beauty in simplicity," he replied.

She nodded, though inside she was starting to knot up with frustration. Her entire mindset was based around eternity: she was an eternal being, of a world that was the gateway to eternal existence in the afterlife and she had always believed that love was an eternal thing. It was possible to fall in love, but it was not possible to fall out of love. And she had seen too many examples to back up that belief: countless souls of dead humans who had been betrayed, hurt and cheated by loved ones, but, despite feeling angry, disappointed and let-down, they still loved those same people. Perhaps the love was not the same, but it still existed. It never died. It was eternal. Love outlived those who felt it.

"I don't specifically remember many of the countless souls I've collected over the centuries, but I do remember some," she said quietly. "I remember the soul of a man I collected during Bakumatsu. It was a difficult time in the living world, and he was a man who had held a position of power throughout the many changes there had been. He was about 65 years old, which was quite a good age for a human to reach in those days in such a turbulent time. He had outlived his wife by almost 40 years, and he had never remarried. He loved her. He fell in love with her the day he met her, he married her very quickly, and he only spent about four of his 65 years with her, but he still loved her. He said he could never love anyone else. She was the only one for him."

"Why are you telling me this?" Hiei asked tightly.

"I asked him if he was looking forward to being reunited with his wife in the afterlife," Botan continued, ignoring Hiei's question. "He said he would never see her again, because he didn't want to impede on her happiness."

"…This story is getting increasingly pointless."

"She had always been in love with someone else. She only married him for his money, and she continued an affair behind his back. He said he knew that, in the afterlife, she would be with her lover, because he had taken his own life shortly after she had died in order that they could be together in the afterlife because social circumstances had kept them apart in the living world."

"…Hn, pointless. They should have just indulged in demon world loving and all moved on with their lives."

"He said he had been driven to madness, because he often saw shadows in the hills when there was a full moon, and he was sure that they were his wife and her lover dancing."

"So he really was an idiot?"

Botan sighed.

"It was the most romantic thing I've ever heard," she said.

"That's your definition of romance?" Hiei spat. "That's stupid! His wife was a slut and he was a fool!"

"Not the man and his wife," Botan groaned. "The wife and her lover. Had they been born even just one hundred years later, it wouldn't have mattered that they were penniless, they could have married without consequence. But because of the time period they were born in, she was made to marry a rich man for the sake of her family. She was denied happiness with the one she truly loved, and she died of a broken heart. The thought of their spirits dancing in the moonlight forever more is so wonderful. It's free and beautiful and romantic."

"And stupid."

Botan sighed.

"I did pity the man whose soul I was ferrying," she conceded. "Because he genuinely loved that woman, and it seemed as though she had grown to resent him for her predicament, even though it was not his fault and he had always been kind to her."

"Kind…"

Botan looked back over her shoulder and Hiei lifted his eyes to meet hers.

"Does nothing ever move you, Hiei?" she asked.

"No," he instantly replied. "I already told you that my heart is not the sort that cares for such nonsense."

"In that case there isn't a problem."

Botan turned her head away and looked up at the broken mirror. Hiei did not ask her to explain and so she did not bother: but simply she had been referring to the fact that she had been growing attached to him, and the thought of losing him had started to bother her, but now that she knew that he would never care for her or love her back, losing him did not seem so terrible.

It was unfortunate that he did not understand true love, she thought, because between his passionate approach to life and his prowess as a lover in the physical sense, he would have made the most perfect life partner imaginable.

But, she supposed, everyone had their faults. And romantic love like the kind she had just tried to explain to Hiei was harder to find in modern times: perhaps it was not something that existed any more. Perhaps she was the one who was wrong, her ideas outdated, because there were no others left alive who believed in romance, destiny, sweetness and true love.

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara awoke with a start, barely managing to cover his head with his arms before Shizuru caught him with the backswing of the pillow she was beating him about the head with.

"I'm awake!" he protested.

"About time!" she sighed, throwing the pillow at him. "You've been sleeping in all week, if you keep this up, you'll take ill when you have to go back to school!"

"Yeah, yeah…" he groaned, pushing aside the pillow and sitting up. "I was having a dream, actually."

"I don't care," Shizuru sighed, yanking open the blinds over his bedroom window.

He squinted and shielded his eyes from the glare of the sunlight with one hand.

"About a really pretty girl," he added.

Shizuru muttered a filthy remark about perverse dreams and ruined bedsheets before leaving the room.

"It wasn't like that, Shizuru!" Kuwabara yelled after her.

He sighed, pushing his sheets aside and standing out of his bed. It had been an alarmingly clear dream, and had the girl not been so stunningly beautiful and had such bizarre colouring he would have thought that she was yet another ghost invading his dreams and reaching out to him because of his psychic powers. She had been locked up in a small room at the top of a tower, with bars on the window and only a single chair to sit on, no bed to lie on and a disconcerting pile of straw by one corner of the room that he suspected she was meant to use as a bathroom. She was very sad, but she was afraid to cry for some reason, and she was even more afraid of someone Kuwabara had not seen in his dream, but through the girl's thoughts he had been aware was a cruel man.

And when he thought about it a little more, he realised that he even knew what the girl's name was: but surely she had not been a ghost trying to communicate with him?

**

* * *

**

Kurama stopped suddenly, his senses picking up on something almost too terrible to believe. Yusuke stumbled awkwardly before stopping a few steps ahead of him and pivoting around to give him a questioning look.

"Everything okay, fox boy?" he called back.

Kurama, who was secretly starting to tire of the moniker "fox boy", gave a small shake of his head.

"For a brief moment I was sure I sensed a certain presence in the depths of this manse," he said quietly. "A duo Hiei and I are familiar with only through hearsay. I cannot fathom them having any sort of connection to a human crime lord, but I also cannot deny what I felt."

Yusuke's eyebrows lowered until his eyes were cast into shadow and then they twisted at alternate angles. Kurama paused long enough to realise that the look on Yusuke's face was one of perplexity before containing a sigh and repeating himself in cruder terms.

"I thought I sensed a pair of very powerful and dangerous demons who have a bad reputation," he said. "I can't understand why they would be here, as they grossly outrank the calibre of demons we have encountered thus far, but if I am correct, we face a very difficult battle for Yukina's freedom."

Yusuke nodded.

"Okay," he called back. "Got a bit mystical in the middle part again though…" he added under his breath.

Kurama did not bother reminding him that demon ears – or, more especially, fox demon ears – missed nothing, since he suspected that telling Yusuke as much would only invite questions on which parts of him were human and which were demon: which was arguably the most complex subject Kurama could think of attempting to explain to anyone, least of all to someone with such a short attention span.

"We should proceed with the utmost of caution," he instead said, moving on to join Yusuke.

"What sort of demons are they?" Yusuke asked as they continued on together.

"The very worst sort," Kurama quietly replied.

"And that is?" Yusuke pressed.

"Former humans."

**

* * *

**

Botan chewed at her lip as all nine officers of the Special Defence Force began sounding off, their clipped responses to Koenma's roll call punctuating the air around the watchtower and making her flinch every time they spoke. After hearing all nine officers individually confirm their presence, Botan suddenly realised that Koenma had, somehow, against the odds, managed to convince his father to free them of their duties to rescue her, and that their arrival in the city of ghosts and apparitions would shortly become a reality.

Within a matter of hours, she would probably be back in spirit world, and that thought made her heart sink.

Botan shook her head slightly, but even physically shaking her brain did not help to rearrange her thoughts any more logically. When she had first arrived in the demon city, she had been in denial about being stuck there, and now, less than a week later, she felt the same numbness when she thought about escaping the city. In less than a week, she had gone from loathing and fearing the city of ghosts and apparitions to loving and enjoying it. She still did not know why – having a human body, the residents of the city not fearing or despising her because she was death personified or just Hiei – but she no longer cared. All that really mattered was that she did not want to go, and when the spirit world Special Defence Force arrived and found her resisting their attempts to take her back to spirit world, they were sure to arrest her whereupon she would be sentenced to a terrible and unthinkable fate of some sorts.

She gave a small shudder and tried not to think about it.

But the actuality of King Enma's elite soldiers arriving in a city populated by demons who each possessed barely a fraction of Hiei's power was a worrying thought. Captain Ootake, she knew, could cut down demons far more powerful than Hiei with a single blast: he and his officers would doubtlessly slaughter anyone who stood in their way as they approached Maze Castle, regardless of motivation. Memories of the elderly demon who had sacrificed his life by the Gate of Betrayal for her and the friendly and well-meaning leopard girl who had helped her catch Hiei out with regards to his definition of love began to rise, unbidden, in her mind, and she was suddenly racked with guilt.

When the Special Defence Force arrived in the city of ghosts and apparitions, they would kill everyone there and arrest her and Hiei – and it was all her fault for going to the demon city without authorisation.

Botan stood up and paced to the other end of the room, fidgeting nervously and chewing harder at her lip until she tasted blood. Suddenly the possibility of erasure from existence – which was a possibility, given that Koenma seemingly no longer trusted her and she doubted she would be able to hide her concern for Hiei and the citizens of the city of ghosts and apparitions, which would make her look even more suspicious – was no longer the worst of her concerns. She was, frankly, far more concerned about Hiei and the residents of the city around them.

"May I enquire what your plans are when you arrive in the city of ghosts and apparitions, Captain?" she heard Koenma ask through the communicator.

"We have already cleared our plans with your father, Sir," Captain Ootake replied.

He sounded a little blunt and brusque considering who he was addressing, Botan thought to herself.

"I'd like to hear them anyway, if you don't mind," Koenma tried.

There was a short pause, during which Botan thought she might have heard someone sighing.

"We intend to broadcast a request across the city that Hiei surrenders himself," Ootake said. "We are going to inform him that his sister is being held captive in spirit world, and her freedom will depend on his unequivocal surrender. We will request that he comes to an open area and waits there for us, and we will allow him a set amount of time to do that. We will be able to monitor his progress via the tracking device he is still wearing. If we arrive in the city and find that he is concealed somewhere – especially if he is concealed in Maze Castle itself – we will simply destroy the entire city. If he does surrender himself we will arrest him and take him back here for suitable sentencing, and then we have allowed two hours to find Botan."

"Only two hours?" Koenma echoed, the tension evident in his tone.

"We should only need two hours, Lord Koenma Sir," a female officer replied. "She will no doubt hear the message we send out asking Hiei to surrender himself, so she will know that we'll be in the city, and if she has any sense, she'll get on her oar and fly up above the rooftops where we can easily spot her."

"Assuming that she's still alive, that is…" a surly male officer muttered.

"Don't talk like that!" Koenma snapped. "That's an order!"

The officer muttered something about Koenma being in no position to issue orders to a squad of soldiers answerable only to King Enma himself, but Koenma either did not hear him or tactfully chose to ignore him as he did not respond.

"We're leaving within the hour, Sir," Ootake said.

"Good," Koenma replied. "But before you go… Promise me that you'll do everything in your power to bring Botan back? She's the most efficient, kindest, sweetest and diplomatic of all the ferry girls in spirit world, and she would be a terrible loss. She may be a little scatter-brained sometimes, but her gentle and loving ways have tamed and recovered more lost souls than even I can remember. Please… I'll miss her as a ferry girl, I'll miss her as a colleague, but I'll miss her the most as a friend."

There was another brief pause, during which Botan again heard the snippy male officer muttering something supercilious about the prince of the underworld developing unhealthy, unnatural and unprofessional relationships with his own employees, and again Koenma ignored him.

"I promise to do everything that is reasonably practicable to ensure that the ferry girl Botan is returned to you alive, Sir," Ootake eventually replied.

"I suppose I can't ask for any more than that?" Koenma said, only half posing his words as a question as though he was partly already sure that they were fact.

"No Sir, you can't," Ootake flatly replied.

"Very well," Koenma said.

Koenma continued to discuss the city of ghosts and apparitions and Yusuke and Kurama's progress in rescuing Yukina with the Special Defence Force but his words were mostly drowned out and consequently forgotten about by Botan when Hiei suddenly cried out behind her. She spun around, her brain taking several seconds to make any sense out of the sight she was greeted with.

"Hiei!" she squealed as she eventually came to her senses. "Goodness Hiei! What have you done?"

She ran at him, thrusting out her arms and barely managing to hook them under his armpits before he began to slump downwards.

"Hiei?" she said, tightening her grip and trying to brace her legs beneath her as his weight began to drag her down. "Hiei! Talk to me Hiei!"

She was answered by a clatter as his sword fell to the ground and she winced as she felt tiny droplets of still-warm blood splat against her leg. She dared to peer over one shoulder at where the weapon had landed, finding the blade was mostly obscured beneath a pool of blood.

"You idiot!" she wailed, turning back to Hiei, who looked unconscious in her arms. "What were you thinking? You're so impetuous and hot-headed and volatile and… And… Stupid!"

She whimpered pitifully and her legs began to shake. For a man who was small in stature and had not a pick of fat on his body, Hiei certainly was heavy, she thought. She was sure that he was even heavier than her human body was, and as she looked down at his shoulders resting on her elbows, silently noting that they were each the size and shape of ripe melons, she realised why that was: apparently that old saying about muscle weighing more than fat was true. Reluctantly she bent over and lowered her arms and Hiei to the ground, carefully laying him down onto his back. She moved to one side of him and dropped to her knees, gulping apprehensively as her knees landed in more blood.

"Oh Hiei…" she muttered.

He grunted something and her head snapped around, her eyes fixing onto his face. He opened his eyes and clenched his teeth, looking suddenly quite animalistic in his determination. He sat up, grabbing a handful of her dress by her back to steady himself as he tried to reach for his sword with his other hand.

"Hiei, no!" she said sternly, grabbing his wrist with both of her hands. "I'm not going to let you mutilate yourself! Not if you won't at least tell me why!"

He growled and yanked his arm out of her grasp. She met his eyes, feeling quite confident despite the distinct glow of rage building around his flaming red irises.

"You heard what the bastard prince said, ferry girl," he growled. "They will kill both of us and everyone in this city if we don't surrender to them."

"…So this is your way of surrendering?" Botan asked flatly, pointing at the frankly brutal wound he hand inflicted upon himself just below his right knee.

"You said the only way to get it off was by amputation," Hiei replied, talking to her in a tone that made it seem as though she was the one behaving irrationally.

"You're going to cut off your leg?" she yelped. "But why?"

"Because if I can get the tracking device out into the woods, away from the city, those stupid soldiers will go there looking for me, and, while they are distracted with that, we can get ourselves – and the rest of the citizens of this city – out through the breach the SDF entered through."

"You… Want the… But…?"

Botan could not even put into words how confused she was.

"I know what you're thinking, woman," he muttered, his fingers tightening around the material of her dress and bringing the sound of stitches straining at the seams to her ears. "You didn't do this. You're blaming yourself for what might happen to the residents of this city, and you shouldn't feel that way. I'm the one that's to blame. I was the one who stayed here against orders, and I was the one who drew you here. You had good intentions when you came here, you've not done anything wrong, you can't let them put you into prison."

"You… You're cutting your leg off for me?"

"Hn, you might find it hard to believe ferry girl, but we are a partnership here. And… I don't think our love has quite run its course just yet. If they arrest you or erase you from existence, that would be something of an inconvenience for me."

Botan screwed up her face but Hiei merely smirked at her in an almost kind way.

"Are you trying to turn this into a joke?" she asked, her voice barely audible as she struggled to say the words.

"I can't stand your screeching, and your moaning, and your philosophising…" he replied. "And if King Enma's band of merry men destroy this city and its inhabitants, you're going to theorise about it until the end of time itself, aren't you? You blame yourself already and it hasn't even happened yet. So let's… Let's not let it happen."

"Hiei, you don't know what you're saying," Botan insisted, shaking her head as she spoke. "The blood loss is making you irrational – I mean, it's making you more irrational than you usually are."

Hiei gave a short, dry laugh.

"I'm not going back to prison, Botan," he said quietly. "I had a plan to take over this city, but it doesn't look like it's going to be possible, so I have a new plan now. And it involves you, me and the rest of the poor fools inside this barrier escaping when the SDF come to arrest me and try to recover you."

"That's not a very well thought out plan, if you don't mind me saying so, Hiei," Botan said softly.

"Oh?" he responded, arching his eyebrows at her expectantly.

"Well, for a start, coordinating getting the entire population of this city out of one breach in the barrier will be a hellish task," she pointed out. "And, from a selfish point of view, I have to return to spirit world. I can't stay here in demon world. I don't know the first thing about how to survive here!"

"We won't be staying in demon world."

"We?"

"We have to go to the living world to make sure that the fox and the detective don't mess up rescuing Yukina. After that, I know plenty of places we can hide there."

"…We?"

Hiei looked directly into Botan's eyes, and for the first time ever, she saw him look strangely gentle and kind, and he even appeared to have a faint hint of a smile on his lips.

"I haven't finished teaching you the ways of demon world loving," he whispered, tilting his chin slightly to bring his lips closer to hers.

"I thought you had," she replied faintly.

"Oh no," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Your education has only just begun. And after that, you still have to fulfil your part of the bargain."

"My part of the… What…?"

"Once I have taught you everything I know about my definition of love, isn't it then your turn to teach me your definition of love?"

Botan made to ask him when they had made such an agreement – because she was pretty sure she would have remembered Hiei agreeing to let her educate him in the ways of romance – but a strange sound came out of her mouth and then her voice failed her. Hiei's smile became slightly more pronounced and he touched his free hand gently to her cheek, trailing his fingertips down to her chin and then steering her mouth to his. She closed her eyes on instinct and melted into him as he moulded his lips over hers flawlessly. She moaned on instinct and was silently glad that he still had a bunch of her dress fisted in one hand, as it was the one thing keeping her upright and preventing her from falling over him.

As they withdrew from each other – at a mutually understood moment, she noticed – Botan slowly opened her eyes again, smiling when she saw that Hiei was still wearing that decidedly gentle look on his face.

"Don't cut off your leg Hiei, please," she said. "We'll figure something else out."

"Can you remove the device?" he asked.

She was surprised to see and hear him ask the question so conversationally, as though he did not care either way.

"No, I'm afraid not," she replied sadly. "But I can over-ride the mortality trigger."

Hiei frowned slightly.

"I can make the device give off a signal that denotes your death," she explained. "But… Perhaps we could use that to our advantage."

Hiei nodded.

"If they think I'm dead, they won't hunt me down, they'll simply look for you," he said.

"Right, so I just need to find a way to make that communicator work again," she said, pointing over at the remains of her communication mirror. "I'll over-ride the mortality trigger at the other end of the city and then I can tell Koenma I'm stuck in the mazes of this castle. When they see that you're far from the castle and dead and I'm inside the castle, the SDF will try to get in here to find me, and we can escape through the breach they've made, and get the rest of the city out with us."

Botan smiled and nodded her head: her plan actually sounded like something that might work.

"We make a good team, you and me, Hiei," she said, half-joking.

"We make a good partnership, you and me, Botan," he replied before leaning in to kiss her again.

**

* * *

**

"We'd make a much better partnership if you weren't so damn cryptic all the time!"

Yusuke watched the back of Kurama's head, expectant of a reply, but received none. Instead, they continued sprinting down and around a spiral staircase that seemed to be leading into the bowels of Tarukane's mansion. Yusuke contemplated making a joke about another basement fight, but decided against it, since Kurama did not really seem to share his sense of humour for such things the same way Kuwabara did.

And, although he was loathed to admit it, in that moment Yusuke regretted not taking Kuwabara with them: if only because it would have been nice to have had someone a little more familiar around to share the odd joke with.

"Through those doors, Yusuke!" Kurama called back over his shoulder.

Yusuke yelped and pushed himself to move faster still as Kurama somehow managed to almost double his speed, aiming himself at a large set of red doors that seemed to be closing on them. Kurama made it through effortlessly but Yusuke barely managed to skid through them before they banged shut behind him, and a quick glance back showed an electronic lock activating, enclosing them into the domed, circular room they were now in.

Yusuke slowly turned around. Ahead of them was a large area of open floor, and at the opposite side of the room stood an imposing, tall, muscular man in dark glasses with a miniscule man with ragged hair perched on one of his shoulders. They were both human, but barely so. Behind them were five screens, each showing a different man, all of whom looked as though they were rich, arrogant and corrupt. Above the five screens was an enormous window, the same height as the screens and as wide as all five combined, and beyond it was a brightly lit room housing a few men in suits, two of whom were holding onto a girl in a pale jade kimono who was barely half their height.

"Well you got the right place, fox boy," Yusuke concluded. "And I guess once we beat these creeps the girl is ours right?"

"Don't be complacent," Kurama warned him quietly. "Those two are not all that they seem."

Yusuke rolled his eyes.

"You're always looking into the bottom of your teacup and seeing the reflection of a bow and thinking it's a snake," he said.

Kurama gave him a withering look and Yusuke himself then realised exactly how his words must have sounded.

"Botan used to say that," he defended himself. "Though I didn't like it when she said it, so why I said it now… Never mind."

Kurama arched his eyebrows expectantly and Yusuke nodded that he was ready before stepping forwards to stand alongside his new ally. Together they adopted a defensive stance and watched and waited for their latest opponent to make the first move.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter: **Tensions are high all round as Hiei and Botan continue their plan to escape the CGA as swiftly and safely as possible, Kurama and Yusuke battle the Toguro brothers and Kuwabara is troubled by yet more visions of Yukina and her dilemma.** Chapter 15 – In Love With You**

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**A/N:** And that's another YuYu fanfic of mine sitting at over 100k words. The good news is that this time, there won't be another 300k words more – in fact, there probably won't even be another 50k words more. Yay! Who knows – maybe soon I'll be able to write a fic in under 50k words!

**FAO "just another fan"**: are you a certain Canadian fanfiction associate of mine using a new username? If so, please accept a medal for having the balls to have faithfully read everything I've ever written on this site over the last 5 years and please reconsider writing again, I miss you. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please ignore this.


	15. In Love With You

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Filthy, filthy, gutteral first section warning**

**Recap:** (Did anything happen last time… Hm…) SDF made plans to attack the CGA (TLA FTW!), Hiei and Botan tried to plan how to get themselves and the residents of the city to safety, Kuwabara had a dream about Yukina and Yusuke and Kurama reached the Toguro bros.

**

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**

**Chapter 15: In Love With You**

Kuwabara's hand slowed and his lips drooped, a chunk of foam slipping down his chin. He frowned at the reflection of himself – in his vest and boxer shorts, a toothbrush hanging from his mouth – as a strange feeling began to wash over him. He rested his hands on either side of the sink and closed his eyes, allowing the feeling to consume him. The toothbrush shortly slid from his mouth as he began seeing that same, beautiful, aqua-haired girl he had been dreaming about the night before, again being hurt by an especially unattractive aging man. He saw her suffering and he saw one of her guards try to escape with her, only to be shot down before her eyes. He saw her endure unthinkable torture and eventually he saw her standing next to the man responsible for her pain with two suited men holding her in place.

She was standing by a window, overlooking a large, circular room, where an enormous man and a tiny man were about to start battling two very familiar faces.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara cried, his eyes opening in time to see that he had just spat toothpaste foam and saliva all over the bathroom mirror.

He swallowed the foam still in his mouth, hurriedly wiped the rest clear from his lips with a nearby towel and then began cursing Yusuke and the door when it refused to open for him. Eventually he managed to wrestle his way out of the bathroom, only to run straight into a body even bigger than his own and stagger back, barely catching himself on the bathroom doorframe.

"Son, are you alright?" his father asked, eying him over in an almost pitying manner.

"I gotta go!" Kuwabara replied.

His father sighed and Kuwabara then noticed his sister standing behind him, looking especially stern.

"Am I in trouble?" Kuwabara asked, glancing nervously between them. "Again?"

"You were in there for fifteen minutes, moaning and groaning and calling out for some girl called Yukina!" Shizuru replied. "It's disgusting!" she added, directing her next words at their father. "It's bad enough I'm the only woman in this house, I shouldn't have to put up with him masturbating in there at this time of day!"

Kuwabara tried to yell at his sister, but all that came out was a high-pitched, incoherent noise of protest.

"It's perfectly natural to have these feelings, Kazuma," his father said, patting his shoulder sympathetically. "But please try to relieve yourself in a quieter manner, and keep it to your own room in future. Your sister and I have to use that bathroom too."

Kuwabara tried to protest again but his efforts were cut off as Shizuru shoved him roughly aside and stepped past him into the bathroom.

"Oh God!" she cried, her voice cracking and her hands flying into her hair. "He got it all over the mirror, dad!"

"What?" Kuwabara squeaked.

His father gave him a slightly admonishing glare before stepping into the bathroom briefly and then re-emerging with the hand towel Kuwabara had wiped his face with, holding it up by one corner, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He pointed at the stringy white mark on the towel and Kuwabara hurriedly shook his head.

"That's not what it looks like!" he protested.

"You used my hand towel for that?" Shizuru roared, leering over their father's shoulder, her dark eyes ablaze with anger.

"I had to wipe my mouth on… Something…"

Kuwabara swallowed hard as he saw his sister turn pale and his father's face twist in a unique blend of disgust and disappointment.

"I have to go," he said quietly. "But I swear, that's not what you both think it is! I was just brushing my teeth!"

"I'm not cleaning this up Kazuma! You get back here right now!" Shizuru yelled after him as he thundered down the hallway towards his bedroom.

He hurriedly launched himself into his bedroom, yanking open his wardrobe doors and hurriedly tearing out his beloved long, white coat and flinging it onto his bed. He started to reach for some clothes but stopped short as Shizuru appeared in the doorway, her face red, her teeth bared and her eyes positively gleaming with rage.

"Get back in there and clean up the mess you made!" she growled quietly.

"I don't have time for that, Shizuru!" he snapped back. "I have to help Urameshi rescue that beautiful girl Yukina!"

"I'm not kidding around, Kazuma!"

"Neither am I!"

Shizuru stomped on foot over the threshold of the bedroom doorway and Kuwabara became gripped by panic, logic leaving him. He threw open his bedroom window and leapt out of it, landing ungraciously in the thorny bushes that lined the garden path below. He groaned and began untangling himself but was promptly slapped over the back with his long coat, which his sister had thrown out of the window at him. He felt two consecutive thumped on his spine before Shizuru yelled at him to not bother coming back.

He waited until he heard her shut the window again before he dared to push back his coat and peer back up at the house. She was gone from the window and so he turned to see what she had been kind enough to throw down to him: his coat and a pair of shoes.

He hoped Yukina would not think any less of him if he showed up to rescue her in just a pair of shoes, his underwear and a long coat.

**

* * *

**

"Goodness Hiei…"

Hiei smirked into a mass of pale blue hair. The ferry girl was slouched over him, naked, sweating and shaking.

"Wh-what just happened?" she asked faintly. "Weren't we… Doing something?"

He supposed they probably had been doing something constructive, but she had – in her defence, rather naively – turned her healing powers on the wound he had inflicted upon himself, and by the time she had finished her work he had been beyond all self-control. His brain had stopped functioning since the blood had been drained from it, and instead his actions had then been driven by the one part of his body that was pumped full of blood: he had flattened the woman to the ground, rid her of her clothes and reminded her what his definition of love was.

It had been quite pleasant, but if the voices broadcasting out of the communicator were any indication, they did not have time to indulge in such behaviour again. First of all they had to figure out a way to deter the stupid spirit world squad, coordinate a mass exodus from the city and then ensure that Yukina was safely returned to the ice village.

But after that, there would be plenty of time for continuing their little games.

"I need you to trigger that mortality mechanism," he said, peering down at Botan as she slowly lifted her head from his chest.

Her cheeks were almost ridiculously red and her hair was clinging to the sweat dampening her forehead and the sides of her face. She was trying to push herself up, her palms flat on the ground at either side of him and she was trying to straighten her arms, but she was quivering a little too much to make her task possible.

"You tire me out Hiei…" she sighed, her large eyes looking up towards him.

She looked quite pitiful, but the sight of her so drained and dishevelled was rapidly becoming an enjoyable one for Hiei.

"The tracking device," he reminded her, raising and lowering his right foot a few times and knock the device against the stone floor.

"Right…" she said faintly.

She dragged her right leg up, bending her knee beneath herself and then began to do the same with her left leg. Hiei barely managed to grab her thigh with his hand before her knee inadvertently collided with his crotch, a sigh of relief escaping him on instinct.

"Sorry Hiei," she mumbled.

He shook his head and pretended to look unperturbed – but inwardly he could feel that horrid nausea that usually swirled around his gut after taking a knee to the groin. Unfortunately it was a feeling he was all too familiar with, and as he felt it again, he again wondered what bastard had ever told women about a man's biggest weakness. It had probably been a eunuch, he decided.

"N-now Hiei, I've never done this before," Botan said, shuffling around to kneel by his right shin.

She wiped her hair from her face and Hiei wished that she had left it there, as it had been doing a fantastic job of hiding the look of apprehension and confusion she was now wearing.

"I might not get it right first time," she said, giving him a wary, sideward glance.

"Hn, it can't be that bad," he muttered.

"Well, it could be actually," she replied, pausing to chew at her lip before continuing. "It might… It might hurt if I get it wrong."

Hiei propped himself up onto his elbows and narrowed his eyes at her in what he hoped was a disapproving glower.

"You know my tolerance for pain, woman," he reminded her.

He lifted one arm to point a finger at his bandana and he began reminding her about the excruciating agony of the operation he had undergone to have his third eye implanted, but his words trailed off when he saw the corners of her mouth droop downwards and her eyebrows twist in an almost bored manner.

"Well, I did warn you," she said when he stopped talking.

Hiei did not answer her. A small part of him had a certain amount of faith that she would get it right. He was not really sure that it was trust, but it was a sort of belief in her abilities. She had been able to stop the detective's woman from turning into a demon and she had managed to vanquish an entire army of man-eating ghouls with one, well-aimed, blast, so surely she could get this right.

"Here goes!" she said.

Hiei started to lie back and relax as he waited for her to finish, but his moment of complacency was short-lived as he shortly found himself sitting bolt upright, tugged into the position by the nerves in his right leg suddenly going into a fit of spasms that eventually travelled up the length of his spine. He growled and bared his teeth and barely managed to hold in a cry of pain, the sight of Botan with her hands clamped over her mouth and tears in her eyes being the only thing that stopped him from yelling out a curse.

"I'm so sorry, Hiei!" she sobbed, reaching her hands out towards him.

She stopped partway towards his shoulders, her fingers suddenly curling down and her entire body jerking back as though the air around him had somehow burnt her fingertips. Perhaps it had, Hiei thought darkly, as he could feel an instinctive surge of adrenaline and raw demon power still coursing through his veins as his body fought to defend and heal itself from attack in response to the pain he had just suffered.

"Maybe we need to think of something else," she said.

"No," Hiei grunted. "Just… Do it right this time!"

She nodded and turned her attention back to the device, her hands hovering over it as she chewed at her lip and frowned in thought. Her fingers were shaking even more than they had that first night he had encountered her in the city of ghosts and apparitions and she had switched the tamper alarm off for him. Was she more afraid of him now? That made no sense: surely by now she realised that he was not going to kill her?

"It's fine," he insisted. "Just do it."

"I'm scared…" she muttered, keeping her head down.

"Of me?" he barked.

She was rapidly starting to anger him with her stupidity.

"I'm scared that I hurt you," she said, her voice even quieter than before.

"I won't hit back," he assured her.

Although he was a little disappointed that she thought he might.

"It's not that," she said, her voice so quiet that it was barely a whisper. "I don't want to hurt you. It upsets me to see you in pain."

"That doesn't make any sense."

Her head snapped up and her eyes met his, and suddenly she looked angry.

"I care about…" she began.

Her face was flickering through a variety of emotions and her chest was heaving from her laboured breaths – which was quite a sight, considering she was still completely naked.

And Hiei suddenly realised that, for the first time, he was looking at her naked and she was not acting all timid and bashful about it. In fact, she was as confident and at ease as she was when she was fully clothed.

What did that mean?

"We're a partnership, right?" she said. "You said so yourself. And so it's in my interests to… Care about your interests."

"My main interest right now is getting out of this city," he answered her.

"Right," she said, nodding her head. "I'll try again, but… I…"

"It didn't hurt me, it just surprised me."

It was a lie, but thankfully it seemed to work as Botan smiled slightly and seemed to relax upon hearing it.

"Well okay," she said. "But you should prepare yourself, because it might happen again."

"Just don't do what you did the last time," Hiei advised her.

"It's a little more complicated than that," she replied.

She pushed her hair back from the sides of her face again and leaned over the device. Her fingers were still trembling, Hiei noticed, but not as badly as they had been before. He knew that he ought to have taken her advice and braced himself against potentially more pain, but he was too distracted to concentrate. Her fear of hurting him was confusing and the way that she was now so at ease being naked in his presence left him wondering if what she had said about a "demon world taint" was true, because usually only the more confident demon girls did not act even the slightest bit demure when in a state of undress. He quite liked that she was now that confident around him – as long as she was not now also that confident being naked around anyone else – and he was starting to think that he also quite liked that she worried about hurting him. Nobody had ever worried about hurting him before.

Nobody had ever worried about him before.

Was this a part of her spirit world love?

"Are you alright?" she asked, her eyes moving to his.

"Fine," he muttered.

"That's it," she said, sitting back onto her heels.

Hiei frowned questioningly and she started to tell him that she had triggered the mechanism, but she stopped abruptly as the voices at the other end of the room began to confirm what she had just done.

"Are you sure?" Koenma asked.

"Absolutely, Sir," the captain replied. "We've been monitoring the signal from Hiei's tracking device since we were commissioned for this duty. He's dead."

"Oh…" Koenma said softly. "Well that changes everything…"

"Those devices are costly to manufacture," a female voice said. "I say we deactivate it. It won't work for much longer anyway without Hiei's life energy to sustain it. If we shut it down remotely, we could keep it charged from the energy it's stored."

"Good idea, officer," the captain agreed. "We can collect it and take it back here. It will be ready to use immediately."

Hiei arched his eyebrows at Botan expectant of an explanation, but she merely glanced back and forth between his face and the communicator, looking increasingly confused herself. The moment only ended when there was a clunking sound that made her yelp in surprise. The tracking device cracked and after a small hissing sound Hiei heard that horrible – but faint – droning sound that had been bothering him for the last several months fade. He audibly sighed in relief, only then realising how draining and infuriating it had been suffering the noise. Botan smiled and began opening out the device: presumably she thought he was just glad to be free of it, as he doubted her ears would have heard the noise the way his had.

She carefully prised it outwards and then, with one hand under his ankle and the other under the back of his knee, she lifted his leg out of the casing. She placed his leg back down on the ground next to the device and – probably quite innocently – dragged a finger down his shin. He flinched and shivered involuntarily, earning himself a confused look from the ferry girl.

"Are you alright?" she asked quietly.

"My leg hasn't felt anything for months because of that damn device," he explained.

"Oh…" she said.

She touched a finger to her lips and stared down at his leg with a wide-eyed innocent look. And, as Hiei watched her, he distinctly saw her features warp as an almost wicked smile grew on her face. Her eyes met his and before he could warn her to stop thinking stupid thoughts, she put all ten of her fingertips onto his leg and dragged lightly downwards, giggling to herself when he tensed again at the sensation.

"That's not funny!" he snapped at her when she finished.

She shrugged and then leaned down and kissed the inside of his ankle.

"Stop it!" he warned her.

She ignored him and continued kissing up his leg. He growled and put a hand onto the top of her head to stop her passing his knee. She clearly still thought she was just teasing his over-sensitive skin, but her actions were having a more significant effect on him, and despite having managed to rid himself of the device, he was still aware that he did not have time to indulge his desire for her again until after they were free of the city of ghosts and apparitions.

"Botan, I have to hide the device," he said firmly, purposely using her name because he had noticed that doing so made her more responsive to what he said after it.

"Oh, of course!" she said, lifting her head and turning to the device. "Is there somewhere deep within this castle that we could hide it?"

"We could just leave it here," Hiei offered.

"No good," Botan replied, shaking her head. "The SDF officers can fly, they could easily get up here and retrieve it in seconds. What about that lava pit?"

"I think I know of a place to hide it. I'll take care of that, you gather up the others and tell them that we're getting out of here."

"Me?"

"You're their leader, only you can tell them what to do."

Botan nodded but she still looked less than certain. Hiei stood up, shook off his leg and then began getting dressed again. He hoped that Botan would do the same and set out to do as he had asked: he did not want to have to tell her that he intended to hide the device behind one of the deadly trap doors in the maze of Maze Castle, and that anyone who ventured after it would certainly die.

**

* * *

**

"If you're planning something sneaky, you better tell me what it is!"

Kurama shook his head.

"Then you want to tell me why you just pushed me over when I had a clear shot?" Yusuke demanded.

"You need to exercise more caution," Kurama replied. "Those two are not all that they seem. If you tire yourself out needlessly, they will not hesitate to kill you."

"…You should try optimism some time," Yusuke dryly answered.

"Please, Yusuke, this is serious," Kurama insisted.

He turned to look at their opponents again. He had never met the famous – or perhaps more accurately, the infamous – Toguro brothers in person, but he had heard plenty about them from demons who had encountered them in the living world. Former humans who had once fought demons, they had won one of the Dark Tournaments, and for their prize they had wished to become demon, to afford them extended lives and increased powers. The rumours Kurama had heard mostly involved the younger brother, who had become obsessed with power and strength, and had been fighting and training to become the most powerful being. Apparently he had long since surpassed human levels of power and only the rare few humans with exceptional strength or an above-average demon could stand up to him in a fight. Kurama was untrusting of their rumoured ruthlessness, and he was less than confident of his own limitations in his human body: and he did not know enough of Yusuke Urameshi to know if he would be one of the few humans strong enough to be victorious against such opponents.

"Your typical strategies won't work against these two," he said.

Yusuke gave him a flat look and pointed at his bloodied lip and already swelling eye.

"No shit, fox boy," he said.

Kurama remained patient and resisted the urge to check on the slowly widening bloodstain on his upper left arm where the older Toguro – currently fashioned as a sword – had somehow managed to cut into him. He glanced up at the window Yukina was still standing behind. He had always wondered what Hiei's sister would look like and what sort of girl she would be, and seeing her wide-eyed, gentle-featured appearance only made Hiei's life story seem all the more ironic: she was not only his opposite in elemental powers, but it seemed as though she was also his opposite in appearance and temperament too. Ice maidens were reportedly emotionless, singular and calculating, but Yukina looked like a kind and well-meaning girl. She also looked quite weak, naïve and defenceless, which made Hiei's over-protective attitude towards her seem all the more poignant.

And Kurama was sure that, wherever Hiei was, he could see where his sister was and what had become of her, and he could only imagine what agonies that was causing the fire demon.

**

* * *

**

"I usually wear pink."

"Pink? Hm…"

"You don't think it's right?"

"Well… With that light hair and already having pink eyes, it's a bit too much pastel colours, don't you think?"

"I uh… I don't know. I've never been given the opportunity to choose my own clothes before."

"You should try brown."

"Brown?"

"Like a deep shade of brown. Brown goes great with blue and pink. I think it would suit you."

Botan nodded slowly, but she had – rather uncharacteristically – run out of things to say. She genuinely had never been given the chance to choose her own clothing before. Traditional kimonos were standard issue for ferry girls, and, after half an hour of discussing fashion with the leopard demon girl, she was starting to think that Hiei's earlier insult may not have been too far from the truth: had she been created as a joke? All the other ferry girls looked quite human, with dark hair and eyes, and they all dressed in black, white or blue – the traditional colours of death. Botan was the only ferry girl she knew who had blue hair. She was the only ferry girl she knew who had pink eyes. And she had been wearing her pink kimono and white obi for so long that she could not even remember who had given them to her. Secretly, her favourite part about being granted a human body had been the moment when Koenma had told her that she ought to acquire some human clothing to help her blend in.

She had actually been excited about putting on that ridiculous school uniform, just because it was finally something she had chosen for herself.

"I like your pants," the leopard girl offered.

Botan looked down at herself. She had dressed in her deep red pants and matching jacket ensemble again, for practicality's sake. Thankfully the residents of the city of ghosts and apparitions had taken her seriously in those clothes and followed her orders to pack some bare essentials and gather by the point where Botan had destroyed the man-eating ghouls – the furthest point from Maze Castle, and, she hoped, the furthest point from where the Special Defence Force would arrive.

"I wasn't sure about wearing something so dark," she said.

"They're nice, but I think they'd suit you better in brown," the demon replied. "You really need to avoid purple, green or red."

"I do?"

"Have you thought about grey? Any shade of grey goes great with blue and pink. Of course you can always wear black or white, too. I'd avoid going too light on the grey or wearing too much white, because, like I already said, too much pastel colours."

"Right…"

Botan wondered if she might be able to convince the girl to come with her to the living world and help her adapt to a life of being free to not only choose her own clothes but to wear them whenever she wanted. She would need to dress inconspicuously in order to avoid drawing unwanted attention to herself and so would Hiei.

Botan paused, a succession of Hieis dressed in a variety human clothing parading through her mind: she saw him in everything from Yusuke's green school uniform to the tight dark jeans and over-sized knitted sweaters that were currently in fashion for young men in the human world.

"Botan!"

She shook herself from her thoughts, blinking rapidly as she refocused her attention on the real Hiei, who was standing in front of her looking a little impatient. She thought that he might have been standing there for several seconds and he had possibly called out her name more than once and so she tried to disguise her ditzy demeanour behind an amiable smile.

"Did you manage to…?" she asked quietly.

He nodded and then leaned closer to her. She corresponding moved closer to him, an exhilarating thrill coursing through her body as her face came close to his. She tried to stay focussed on the task at hand, but she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her hands off of him.

"Tell them to wait here," he whispered. "You and I will return to the watchtower and monitor the conversations over the communicator. When we hear the SDF leaving spirit world, you will fly us back here, and we will wait for our moment to make our escape."

Botan nodded and then turned back to her newfound friend.

"Could you do me a favour, sweetie?" she asked.

"Sure thing, Lady Botan!" the leopard girl replied, bowing almost comically to her.

Botan smiled and tolerated the gesture as patiently as she possibly could: it always made her feel awkward to have people bowing to her, but Hiei had advised her against asking them not to, as it might make her seem suspicious to them, and since she trusted Hiei, she had followed that advice.

"Could you please make sure that the others stay here for me?" she continued. "Hiei and I have to go back to Maze Castle for a little while, and when we come back, it will be almost time to leave the city, so make sure that nobody leaves this area for any reason, because we won't have time to go back for them."

"Can do, Milady!" the girl replied, bowing again.

"Thank you very much."

Botan turned to Hiei. His face was blank, but she suspected that it was that way because he was hiding something: though she could only guess at what.

"Milady?" he said, holding out a hand towards her.

She smiled and put her hand in his. She knew that he was being sarcastic, but she liked that he was making a joke with her, as it seemed like progress. He was often sarcastic, but she hoped that his sarcasm was just another form of wit, and with a little bit of love and support, he might gradually soften and start to show a more playful side of his character.

She let him lead her through the mists and away from the others until they were out of sight. They then both stopped and she summoned her oar, and together they hopped onto it and took to the skies.

"Don't look so worried," she said to Hiei as they flew towards the castle.

Hiei did not respond and so she pushed a thumb against the skin between his eyebrows, being careful to only touch that area and not to accidentally poke his third eye concealed beneath his bandana.

"We face many complications today," he said darkly.

"We'll make it," Botan replied confidently. "Do you know why?"

Hiei again remained silent and, after waiting what seemed like reasonably long enough for him to reply, Botan answered regardless.

"Because I trust you, Hiei."

She distinctly saw his eyes widen. As he usually squinted all the time, he looked suddenly ten years younger and almost adorably cute – though in a little boy sort of way, which seemed odd to her when she thought about the nature of their relationship.

"I do trust you Hiei," she insisted. "I trust you with my human life."

She turned back to face the direction they were flying and left him to consider her words, which he still seemed quite shocked by. She assumed he had rarely – if ever – had anyone tell him that they trusted him but she hoped that if she put her faith in him it would again help him to realise that letting someone else into his life was not the terrible thing he previously thought it would be.

"I trust you," he said quietly behind her.

"Well good!" she said cheerfully.

"It's unwise for you to go around trusting just anyone," he added.

"You're not just anyone, Hiei," she pointed out. "You're my lover."

"Hn."

Botan did not know if he had said that he trusted her out of obligation rather than because he genuinely felt it, but she liked to think that he was the sort to only say what he meant, and so again she let herself trust that he had told her the truth.

They arrived back in the watchtower in time to hear Koenma and Captain Ootake indulging in a very heated argument about Hiei's "death" and what impact that now had on their plans to go to the city of ghosts and apparitions.

**

* * *

**

"This is now just a very basic search and retrieve mission! My officers have better things to do with their time! Send some ogres!"

"Regardless of what has become of Hiei, the fact still remains that my Botan is still stuck in there!"

"You just did it again, Sir!"

"Did what?"

"You called her "my" Botan. If you were under my command, I would order you to stand down from this mission for taking a personal interest in it – which is against protocol!"

Hiei groaned.

"Does that thing have a volume control?" he asked.

"It does, but I'm afraid it's broken," Botan nervously replied.

"Hn, typical."

Hiei turned to a hole in the wall to look out across the now abandoned city. From his current vantage point – and looking only with his eyes and not his jagan eye – the city looked the same as always. Which was good, he thought, as it would not arouse suspicion amongst the spirit world Special Defence Force when they arrived.

"Lord Koenma was always a very kind boss," Botan said behind him. "Sometimes I think we were like friends. I don't know if it's right for me to call him a friend, because he is the prince of spirit world, and I'm… Well, like you said yourself Hiei, I'm a servant."

"You're nobody's servant now," Hiei answered. "You're free to do and think and call people whatever you want to."

"Yes… It's quite strange…"

Hiei could sense that she was nervous, and he suspected that, once they had escaped the city and rescued Yukina, Botan might well have some sort of panic attack as she struggled to come to terms with what being free actually meant: but he was prepared for such a time. It was not exactly something he was looking forward to – her voice got quite irritatingly shrill when she was excited about something – but he considered it to be the price he was going to have to pay to enjoy her company for a little longer. He was certainly not ready to end his time with her, least of all because of spirit world and their interference, and so he would tolerate her anxieties.

He wondered when his time with the ferry girl would end. It would have to end eventually, because loving never lasted. The longest he had ever managed to tolerate one woman as a lover had been 23 days. He felt that he wanted longer than that with Botan, mainly because she was only just starting to really understand how much pleasure they could share together.

And he was curious about her definition of love: he wanted to understand it, and a creature as obsessed with it as she was seemed like the perfect tutor.

He wondered if he would like it.

"Hiei?"

"Hn?"

Hiei waited for Botan to continue, and when she did not, he turned his head to look back over one shoulder at her. She was chewing at her lip again, and again she had drawn blood. Nervous habits were not something demons suffered from, but Hiei was aware that humans were plagued by them. He wondered if spirits suffered them too or if Botan had developed hers since gaining a human body.

"Listening to all of this…" she said faintly, waving a hand weakly at the communicator. "You and I are worlds apart… Literally… But…"

She paused to chew at her lip a little more before finally meeting his eyes.

"The things they're saying about you," she said. "They're being so cruel–"

"I'm not listening to them," Hiei lied.

He was, of course, listening to Koenma and the spirit world soldiers berating him and miscalling him, but it was not as though it was surprising to hear: they were from spirit world and he was a demon, one of their sworn enemies, after all. There were plenty of demons in demon world who had said worse, too. Even his own family in the ice village and the bandits who had raised him had called him worse.

"Don't fret over it needlessly, Botan," he said, again using her name because he knew it would help her to focus.

"I need to…" she began.

Again she chewed at her lip and her eyes wandered to the floor. She held that position for some time before suddenly crossing the room towards him in a few long strides. He turned around to face her fully, frowning at her curiously, the suddenly determined gleam in her eyes taking him by surprise.

"Hiei, I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you."

Hiei stiffened. Something about the way she had said it and the words she had used had left him strangely numb.

"I'm in love with you, Hiei," she said again, touching her hands to his shoulders. "I'm in love with you."

She leaned forwards and began showering his face and neck with kisses, only pausing to repeat her words over and over, each time leaving him feeling even more detached and confused than before.

"I'm in love with you."

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter: **After a hard fought battle, Yusuke and Kurama "defeat" the Toguros: but since Hiei isn't there to fulfil the role he played in Yukina's rescue in the original story, things go rather awry. Botan and Hiei manage to coordinate the remainder of the evacuation from the CGA, but their troubles are far from over when Botan does something quite terrible and Hiei does something wholly unexpected.** Chapter 16 – You Cut Me Open**

**

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**

**A/N:** Most people would be glad to have time off and use it constructively. I, on the other hand, have finally discovered what it means to have an OTP. I was re-watching YYH – more specifically, I was re-watching the episode where Hiei gets over his ranking sulk – and my first thought was: "oh yeah, Hiei came back now because he's always psychic-stalking Botan (he is, check the Dark Tournament episodes!) and he saw she got killed saving Mitarai. He was coming back to check on her and he rescued Yusuke from Sniper on the way. That's also why Botan's so happy to see him when he gets back".

And you all thought HieiBotanClub grasped at straws…

Incidentally, the above brain-fart has now become the grounding for a future HB fic I am planning.


	16. You Cut Me Open

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Plot 180 warning**

**In case it's not already obvious, I've gone over my initial storyboard of 16 chapters – this is NOT the last chapter.**

**Recap:** Kuwabara took off to join the efforts to rescue Yukina, Yusuke and Kurama fought the Toguros, Hiei and Botan plotted to get out of the CGA with all the residents and Botan told Hiei that she is in love with him.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 16: You Cut Me Open**

Yusuke cursed and rolled over. He was never one to back down from a tough fight, but he had never been in a fight where, despite hitting his hardest and dodging his fastest, he had been left battered and his opponent looked barely affected. He looked down at his right hand and saw that he had one shot left on his Spirit Gun. He cursed again and looked about to locate Kurama, finding him looking quite untidy and arguably as wounded and worn out as Yusuke himself was: but he was still holding himself upright and poised, either from pride or demon instinct.

Kurama caught his eye and, after a few furtive glances at the Toguros, he jogged over to join Yusuke.

"I can't get a clean shot at him, and I only have one shot left," Yusuke whispered to him.

"Well if you have one shot left, we just have to make it count," Kurama whispered back. "I have a plan."

Yusuke arched his eyebrows, partly in surprise but mostly out of sarcasm. Kurama had appeared to have several plans throughout their battle, but all of them had ended with them both on their backs and their opponents still unfazed.

"That shield form the little one is in is impossible to break through," Yusuke pointed out.

"Yes, I agree," Kurama replied. "But if I can bind him in place with my Rose Whip and pull him out of the way, you could get a clean shot at the younger brother, and I think that is our key to victory. I won't be able to hold his arm back for long, his strength is immeasurably superior to mine, so you will need to act very quickly."

"Right," Yusuke agreed. "And if I miss, we're screwed."

"If we don't at least try, we're screwed anyway," Kurama replied.

Yusuke was a little taken aback to hear Kurama use the word "screwed", but by the forced smile on his face, he suspected he had done it in an attempt to reassure him.

"Right, let's do this, fox boy," Yusuke agreed.

He saw the outer end of one of Kurama's eyebrows twitch slightly, but his tight smile remained in tact and so Yusuke did not question him.

"On my word, take your aim," Kurama instructed him.

"Right," Yusuke agreed.

Together they straightened up and turned to face the Toguro brothers and the rich men watching the fight beyond them. Yusuke glanced up at Yukina, still being held in place by two men who dwarfed her – which seemed beyond excessive to him. She was clearly just an innocent girl, and what those men had done to her was unforgivable.

"Now."

Yusuke snapped his attention back to the fight as Kurama lashed out with his Rose Whip, expertly catching it around the body of the elder Toguro brother, who was currently wound around his younger brother's right arm and acting as a shield. Yusuke quickly took aim and as Kurama tugged Toguro's arm aside Yusuke released his Spirit Gun with so much power, the resultant force threw him back, where he landed ungraciously on his backside. The blast he unleashed seemed to move painfully slowly through the air and before it reached Toguro he saw him yanking his arm downwards, jerking Kurama's Rose Whip and pulling him from his feet. But, as Kurama smacked into the ground face-first, Yusuke's Spirit Gun blast hit Toguro in the abdomen and, for the first time, Yusuke saw the giant's face contort with pain.

Yusuke got to his feet and staggered over to Kurama. He wanted to ask Kurama if what they had done had actually worked, but when he saw Kurama drop his weapon and stand up at his side looking calmer than usual, he decided that something must have finally gone in their favour. To further his belief Kurama looked away from their opponent, tilting his head upwards. Yusuke followed the direction of his gaze and saw four of the five screens showing men smiling and shaking their heads, and the fifth showing a younger, scar-faced man looking particularly pleased with himself. Above the monitors, behind the large glass window, the short bald man was becoming frenzied and he grabbed at Yukina, pulling her from the men who had been holding her.

When he shouted something into a phone and then turned and fled the room, dragging Yukina with him, Yusuke felt a strange sense of nausea sinking down low in his gut.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Kurama said.

Yusuke turned to him.

"Which part?" he asked, turning to look at their fallen opponent.

He was down and unmoving, but he looked strangely unharmed.

"Yukina," Kurama said. "I don't think our battle to liberate her is over just yet."

"You're a real joy, you know that?" Yusuke grumbled.

Kurama ignored him and grabbed up his Rose Whip before running towards the door they had entered through. It was still locked in place, but after a few strange hand movements, Kurama somehow managed to over-ride the electronic lock and open the doors.

"I guess your training in larceny is paying off now, huh fox boy?" Yusuke said cheerfully as he followed him out through the doors.

Kurama did not answer him and Yusuke was a little disappointed: the sense of dread he was feeling was not lessening any, and he had been hoping that Kurama would talk to him and distract him from it.

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara stumbled awkwardly off the bus – mainly because an elderly woman sat by the front was slapping him over the back of the head with her shopping bag whilst calling him a pervert. He tried to explain himself, but as he turned around all he saw was the woman and the bus driver shaking their heads at him.

"But–"

He stopped as the bus doors snapped shut and the bus pulled away with an angry hiss, leaving him standing at the roadside in his shoes, his underwear and his long coat, which he had not bothered closing over. He sighed and slumped over, feeling humiliated and insignificant: but as he was struck by another vision of that pretty girl in the sea-green kimono he brightened up and turned around, barely bothered when he was greeted by a sprawling, seemingly never-ending expanse of woodland. He held up one hand, extending his pinkie in the air and waiting for that familiar twitch that would tell him where to go next to find her.

Even though she had only appeared to him in a dream and a few visions, Kuwabara was already sure that his fate was tied to Yukina's.

He felt a strong pull in one direction and started running towards it. It took him into the heart of the forest, where he could sense several malevolent presences, more becoming apparent to him as he ran, and each new one seeming stronger than the last. He suspected he would have to face a few battles on his way to Yukina, and he was prepared for them, the thought of reaching her proving to be quite the incentive for putting himself in mortal danger.

Kuwabara cut down a demon spider from its web and he scared off a few other, lesser, beings with a wave of his glowing spirit sword, all without breaking stride: but when he heard a helicopter flying low over his head his legs stopped beneath him, the top half of his body stopping half a stride later and almost off-balancing him. He staggered slightly until he found his balance and looked up through the treetops at the helicopter, which was flying so low, the upper branches of the trees were being whipped downwards from the backdraft off the blades. It was just a helicopter, it had not stopped, turned around or dropped anything horrid on him, and yet for some reason he could not fathom, Kuwabara got a distinctly ominous feeling from watching it.

It was as though it signified something terrible that would soon occur: something that neither he, nor Yusuke, would have any power over stopping.

**

* * *

**

Botan had her arms around Hiei, and a very small part of her knew that she was probably holding him too tightly, having long since crossed the line between "close embrace" and "suffocating bear hug". But despite that piece of logic hanging around in the recesses of her mind, she was fighting the urge to hold him even tighter. She felt like she just could not hold him tightly enough, as though making him understand the strength of her feelings depended entirely on how hard she could crush him in a hug.

"I'm in love with you, Hiei," she said again, her voice slightly muffled by his hair.

He had not replied, verbally or physically, since she had been overtaken by the urge to try to impress upon him just how much she had come to care for him. She supposed that he was in shock: she was still a little surprised herself. She felt foolish, too. Their relationship was meant to have been an example of demon world loving, and Hiei had warned her not to confuse it for anything deeper and not to become attached; and she had thought that she had managed to keep that distance between them, to stop him just short of reaching her heart.

But the fragile barrier Botan had managed to erect around her heart to stop herself from falling completely in love with Hiei had been demolished when he had said the words "teach me your definition of love".

"Hiei?" she said softly, forcing her arms to loosen enough that she was able to lean back and look him in the face. "Are you alright?"

He frowned slightly and then turned to the communicator. She watched his profile for some time, silently wondering what about the communicator could possibly have been more important than what had just transpired between the two of them: but what she heard next suddenly changed everything.

"Don't give me excuses, Yusuke!" Koenma cried frantically. "Run faster, blast down a wall, blow up a ceiling: do what you have to do, but do not let Tarukane get on that helicopter!"

Botan tensed.

"I'm running as fast as I can!" Yusuke yelled back. "I've used up all my spirit energy, I can't blast or blow up anything! The whole compound has been locked down by some central computer, Kurama has to keep stopping to pick locks so that we can get out of here!"

"Yusuke, if Tarukane gets away with Yukina, there's no telling what he'll do to her next!"

"Can't you send us some help?"

"The SDF are already on their way to the city of ghosts and apparitions, I can't recall them now!"

Hiei turned abruptly to Botan.

"Get your oar," he said.

She nodded and did as he said. If the Special Defence Force had left spirit world, they only had minutes to get out of the castle and back to the rendezvous point with the rest of the citizens of the city.

"Don't worry about Yukina, Hiei," she said as they leapt onto her oar. "Yusuke won't let us down. He'll get her to safety. And even if he doesn't, you and I will find her and save her."

As they flew, Botan tried to tell herself that Hiei's silence was because of his concern: and as much as she could appreciate that, she could not help but feel a little irked by the untimely occurrence of it. Halfway back to the others she looked back over her shoulder and saw that Hiei had closed his eyes and removed his bandana, his large jagan eye glowing, apparently looking for something far away. She chewed at her lip in frustration and turned her attention back to their goal, taking them down as the mass of bodies began to appear as a dark mass amongst the smog.

"Where is she now?" she asked as she lowered them to the ground and noticed Hiei replacing his bandana.

"We don't have long," he muttered.

Botan dismounted her oar and Hiei leapt to the ground. She dismissed her vehicle of choice and turned to face him, putting her hands on his shoulders to stop him from continuing on to join the others.

"Hiei, if Yukina is in great danger, you should go on ahead without me," she said.

He met her eyes with a slightly sceptical look but she nodded firmly.

"I'll make sure that everyone here gets out," she assured him. "You can travel fast on your own – probably faster than you would with me – so you should go to her."

"I'm not leaving you," he said quietly.

"Wh-why not?"

"Because if the SDF catch you, they'll take you back to spirit world, and I won't ever see you again. We're staying together."

Botan was not sure if she wanted to smile or cry.

"Besides," he said, his eyes lifting to something over one of her shoulders. "The idiots are here already, and Yukina is about to be put on board a human flying machine: I'll need your oar to help me reach her now."

Botan turned her head to look over her shoulder, seeing nine brilliant balls of light streaking through the sky towards the watchtower of Maze Castle, looking like a cluster of gigantic comets. Behind them she could see a faint distortion in the air that indicated where they had created a tear in the barrier to enter the city: and, by luck, they had created quite a sizeable tear, one far bigger than the trapdoor they had created between the city and the living world for Yusuke to enter through.

"How long do you think it will take us to get everyone across the city to that breach?" she asked, turning back to Hiei.

"Provided nobody here is ridiculously slow, we should have them all out within half an hour," he replied.

"Half an hour?" Botan muttered, her eyes wandering up the silhouette of the watchtower, which looked especially dark and foreboding against the bright red sky. "But the SDF will find the tracking device before then for sure!"

Hiei made a noise somewhere between clearing his throat and muttering something short and indecipherable. Botan turned to him but he turned away as she looked at him.

"You better round them up," he said. "We can't waste any more time."

Botan nodded, despite the fact that Hiei could not see her gesture. She then walked onwards and, with the help of her leopard friend and a few others, rounded up the residents of the city and started them walking through the edge of the forest, out of sight of the city and towards the opening the spirit world Special Defence Force had created. In the chaos of getting so many bodies moving, Botan lost sight of Hiei for several minutes, and eventually had to resort to using her oar to fly above the crowds to pick him out. She had expected to find him at the front, leading the way, but, to her surprise, he was near the back and off to one side, deeper in the cover of the trees.

"Hiei!" she called out, swooping towards him.

He glanced at her briefly but did not break his stride. Botan leapt down in front of him, dematerialising her oar with one hand and reaching out the other to stop him. He stopped as her hand touched his chest, looking first at her hand and into her eyes.

"I just thought that we should maybe go over a few things before we get out of the city and head back to the living world," she said.

He nodded, but said nothing, and so she began raking through her pockets, producing the various spirit detective items she was still carrying. After shuffling through them – and pausing a little longer than even she thought was appropriate as she happened upon the Psychic Spyglass and found herself looking through it at Hiei – she eventually found what she had been searching for.

"I have three of these left," she said, holding up the three Mejiru Shiiru stickers. "And, just in case we get separated, or anything happens to us on the way out of here, I think we should use them."

Hiei's eyes moved to the stickers in her hand, and she again saw him take on that slightly boyish look on curiosity she had only occasionally seem him wear.

"Take one," she encouraged.

His eyes flicked back to hers and he slowly plucked out one of the labels. Once he had it free of the others he stopped to study it, but Botan did not wait to hear what he was going to say. Instead she opened her jacket.

"Stick it on me," she said.

He moved his eyes to her chest, his eyebrows rising slightly.

"If you put it on my clothes I could lose it," she said. "Just… Put it directly on my skin."

He lifted his eyes to hers again.

"Please Hiei," she said.

"Why?" he asked. "What does this thing do?"

"It's based on the tracking device you had on," she replied.

"What? Why would I want another one of those on?"

"No, let me explain: only the person who attaches the label can remove it, and it allows the person wearing it to monitor the health status of the person who attached it. If you put one on me, I'll know if anything happens to you, even if we get separated."

"I don't see the point. I can use my jagan eye to find you if I lose you."

"What if I lose you? I need to know that you're okay. I forgot that you wouldn't really need one to check on me, but I need a way to check on you, Hiei."

Hiei looked down at the label, slowly turning it around between his fingers.

"You want this to check on me?" he asked, looking up at Botan again.

"It's not that I don't trust you," she assured him. "It's just that I worry about you. The label changes colour if you get hurt, and this way, if we get separated, I would know straight away if you got in trouble."

"I won't get in trouble, I can handle myself," he replied.

"Please Hiei, I…"

Botan could not finish her sentence, as she suddenly found herself wanting to cry. She managed to contain her tears, but she thought that her anxiety must have shown because Hiei's face softened as he studied her expression.

"Okay, ferry girl," he said gently.

He moved his hand forwards and pressed the label to her skin, fixing it on her left breast just above her bra.

"This isn't going to cause you as much… Discomfort as the tracking device caused me, is it?" he asked as he withdrew his hand.

She shook her head. He looked down at the remaining two labels in her hand and then nodded his head.

"Then you'd better give me one too," he said, removing his coat.

Botan paused, unsure what to think about Hiei's sudden change of heart.

"If we get separated while I'm recovering Yukina, I'll be too busy to check on you with my jagan eye," he explained, apparently sensing her confusion. "This way I'll be able to see easily if anything happens to you."

"Right," she agreed, touching a label to the same point on his chest as he had attached the one on her.

She spent longer than was necessary running her fingers around the circumference of the label, pretending that she was just sticking it in place rather than enjoying the feeling of the warmth of his body through the label and thinking a slightly silly thought about how they each had a Mejiru Shiiru sticker from each other over their hearts.

"How does it work?" Hiei asked, awakening her from her trance. "How does it indicate a problem?"

"Yes, of course," she muttered.

She retracted her hand and cleared her throat before zipping up her jacket again and then explaining the function of the labels.

"The labels are currently blue, you see, because we are both well. If it turns yellow, that indicates a minor wound, if it turns red, that indicates a critical wound, and if it turns white and falls off…"

"Yes?" Hiei pressed.

"If it turns white and falls off then the person who attached it has died," Botan said reluctantly.

Hiei nodded quite matter-of-factly, but Botan was feeling miserable again. The thought of the sticker on her chest fading and dropping off was creating a cramping in her gut that was almost painful.

"You worry too much, Botan," Hiei said.

She opened her mouth to answer him but he walked past her, starting after the others, who were almost out of sight as they had continued their journey, leaving Hiei and Botan behind. Botan watched him for several seconds before sighing softly.

"How can I not worry about you, Hiei," she whispered. "You're reckless and irresponsible, and I love you: of course I worry."

She sighed again and then hurried after him.

**

* * *

**

Hiei did not acknowledge Botan as she caught up to him and fell in pace with him. He was still processing what she had just said. She had said it louder than he suspected she had meant to, and his sensitive demon ears had heard every word only too clearly. She had done something he had feared she might – she had become attached to him despite the fact that their relationship would not last – and, despite him having initially thought that he would find such a situation amusing, he instead found it confusing and unsettling.

He cared about her too, but not in the way she apparently cared about him. For him, the word love was still something he did with a woman when he felt horny. He was aware that Botan believed in an entirely different definition of the word, but he still did not understand how her definition would ever work for someone like him. He could not understand why anyone would feel that way about him and why he would feel that way about someone else. He had no idea how he would express himself if he was suddenly struck by the eternal, tender love that the ferry girl believed in.

She was a ferry girl, a gentle, benevolent, friendly, pretty creature – she was a little erratic and neurotic at times, but there was no getting away from the fact that, for her, the gentle, romantic kind of love was not just something she believed in and understood, it was something she was capable of expressing. He was a demon, a harsh, malevolent, singular and vicious creature, who had told her many times that he did not care for her type of love.

So why then did she love him?

Hiei glanced up at her as they walked along together. Her eyes were forward and she was chewing at her lip again. She was clearly nervous, but she was also making an effort to hide it. Something was troubling her – something more than the escape from the city and running away from her former life in spirit world – but he was almost afraid to ask or look into her thoughts and find out what. He wanted to give her the chance to do to him what he had done to her: to explain and demonstrate a definition of love not previously understood. He did not think that he would adapt to her type of love the way she had to his, and he doubted that he could even return her feelings, far less manage to express them to her, but he was curious regardless.

Although he had never really believed in love, he had always wondered how it would feel to have someone who he could trust completely, someone who would never turn their back on him, try to steal from him, try to kill him or simply mistreat him. Botan was definitely someone he could trust, if only because loyalty had been ingrained into her as part of her role as a ferry girl. She had said that she was not a vindictive creature and he could see that now: though he still wondered whether she was that way because she was thoughtful or because she was too stupid and naïve to understand how being wronged and betrayed felt.

She had never suffered the hardships that he had, and she probably never would, so it was little wonder that she was so cheerful and positive about everything. She had no experience of things going badly to understand that they often did.

Hiei wondered how chipper she would be if she did have something terrible befall her that she had to fight to overcome.

When they finally reached the breach in the barrier, Botan sent through a few of the demons she had been more friendly with, and asked them to wait on the other side to make sure that everyone else got through and fled to safety. Botan herself remained back with Hiei, ensuring that nobody remained inside the barrier.

"Hiei, I…" she started, her voice trailing off as her eyes met his.

"What?" he asked.

She smiled tightly and touched a hand to his shoulder.

"What lies ahead of us is unknown, and that's always a little bit scary," she said. "But I just want you to know that I love you, and when I think about that, I feel like I can face anything."

She squeezed his shoulder slightly and Hiei was almost glad of it, because every time she said that she loved him, his entire body went numb, and the physical reminder that he could still feel something was welcome. He sensed that she wanted him to answer her, but he had nothing to say: he was not in love with her – at least, not in the same way she was in love with him – and he was not about to lie about something like that. He had explained to her already that he was not capable of feeling that sort of love, but it almost seemed as though she did not care. Maybe that was another thing about that spirit world type of love. Maybe it was so selfless that it did not need validation or reciprocation.

"Are you ready?" she asked, her oar appearing in her hand with a soft clunk.

He nodded.

"Then let's go free Yukina!" she said, almost too cheerfully.

**

* * *

**

"Yukina's trapped in there!"

Yusuke threw a stone out of sheer frustration, though with no real purpose or effect. Kurama stopped at his side, his hand pressed to the wound on his upper arm – which was apparently worse than he was admitting to, as he could barely move his arm and had difficulty using his fingers on that hand: something else that had hindered their progress through Tarukane's mansion when he had been trying to force open locks.

"Damn!" Yusuke yelled. "What do we do now?"

He turned to Kurama, who looked typically blank. Was that a demon thing, Yusuke wondered?

"We should have taken Kuwabara with us," Yusuke muttered, turning from Kurama again. "He could have waited out here and guarded against this sort of thing."

They were stood on the roof of Tarukane's mansion, overlooking the treetops around them and, most importantly, they were watching the helicopter carrying Tarukane and Yukina fly away from them. Yusuke was out of spirit energy, so shooting it down was not an option – though shooting it down was probably not a good idea anyway, he decided, as he might accidentally hurt Yukina. Kurama looked like he might soon pass out, and since the helicopter was picking up speed, it would soon be too late to pursue it with any chance of seeing where it went to, which meant the entire mission had been a failure.

Yusuke sighed and turned to tell Kurama that they would have to return to spirit world and admit their failure to Koenma: but the fox demon had vanished.

"Kurama?" Yusuke called out, looking about for any trace of which direction he head disappeared in. "Kurama!"

**

* * *

**

Kuwabara stopped running. The red thread of fate that had been guiding him to Yukina was doing something really strange: it had suddenly started moving towards him, very rapidly. He looked down at his hand in confusion, unsure what it could possibly mean. He had not thought that Yukina would have been capable of moving so quickly, even if she was running with Yusuke and Kurama. It was probably a good sign, he thought, as it probably meant that she was escaping her prison.

But he did not have a good feeling, and it was not helped by the sound of the helicopter that had passed him earlier starting back towards him.

He slowly looked up, not yet able to see the vehicle through the trees, but the drone of its engines and blades steadily getting louder as it approached. And, as it got closer, so did the other end of the red thread.

"Yukina…" Kuwabara muttered.

He began jogging forwards, keeping his head up and forward, watching for the first sign of the helicopter approaching. He did not know what he would do once he saw it, but he was finding it hard to think about anything when the feeling of dread was getting worse by the second. It sounded as though the helicopter was flying very low, and he thought that he might even be able to see if Yukina was onboard it, and who she was with. He could not think how or why Yusuke and Kurama would be taking a helicopter back home, and so he kept his guard up.

And, after less then a minute of moving towards the sound, the helicopter came into Kuwabara's line of sight. He stopped short. Someone was hanging from the landing skids. Kuwabara squinted to try to focus, but the distance was too great for him to make out who it was. Someone was definitely hanging, by some sort of rope, from one of the skids. Someone with long hair that was being whipped around by the displaced air from the rotor.

In the same moment that Kuwabara realised that it was Kurama, hanging on with the aid of his Rose Whip, the helicopter dipped drastically and Kurama disappeared amongst the treetops. Kuwabara vainly tried jumping up onto a nearby rock and stretching onto his toes in an attempt to see what had become of Kurama. The helicopter was steadily getting closer, and it would only be a matter of time before it passed over where he was walking, and he wondered if he might be able to jump up to Kurama when it did. He eventually decided to give that idea a try and he leapt from the rock to the nearest tree and began trying to climb it to get himself up higher: but before he was even halfway up the tree he heard a series of worrying sounds and then found himself engulfed by a shadow.

He looked up in time to see the helicopter spin upside-down and plummet straight down towards him.

**

* * *

**

Kurama had not seen what had happened: holding onto his Rose Whip with just one arm, his other too badly injured to be of any use to him, had consumed all of his attention, but he had not really needed to get visual confirmation of what had happened, because he had sensed, smelt and heard it all.

Apparently Hiei had somehow managed to escape from the city of ghosts and apparitions.

As he was catapulted over the helicopter, which was flipping over in the air, Kurama reluctantly powered down his Rose Whip, turning it back into a simple rose in order to free it from tangling up amongst the wreckage. He landed awkwardly on a thick tree branch, but had to launch himself from it again almost as soon as he landed, as he noticed Kuwabara standing in a nearby tree staring dumbly up at the crashing helicopter.

Kuwabara grunted and called him an unpleasant name as he collided with him and they fell from the tree. Kurama hit the ground first and he quickly pushed Kuwabara over and ducked over them both as a tree fell and pieces of twisted, broken metal flew through the air around them. Once the chaos had settled Kurama got to his feet again and grabbed Kuwabara's arm, dragging him up.

"We have to get out of here, there could be a fire," he warned.

"But what about Yukina?" Kuwabara wailed.

Kurama paused, frowning curiously at Kuwabara. How did he know about Yukina? Kurama's eyes then slowly lowered down over Kuwabara's form.

"Is there a reason you're not wearing any clothes?" he asked, lifting his eyes back to Kuwabara.

"I was in a hurry!" Kuwabara snapped defensively, wrapping his coat around himself to conceal his baggy vest and comical panda boxer shorts.

"Well we ought to be in a hurry now, too," Kurama replied, trying to keep the situation under control as best he could. "Let's go."

"What about Yukina?" Kuwabara demanded.

"She's fine," Kurama assured him.

"She was in that helicopter!" Kuwabara yelled, pointing at the twisted wreckage behind Kurama.

"She wasn't in it when it fell," Kurama replied.

"Oh no?"

Kurama opened his mouth to answer, but was saved the bother of explaining the situation to Kuwabara as Hiei landed beside them – as though on cue – with Yukina cradled in his arms.

"See?" Kurama said instead.

He watched as Hiei carefully set his sister onto her feet, keeping one arm around her waist as he asked her if she was alright. Once she had assured him that she was and thanked him profusely for his help he released her and turned to Kurama, meeting his eyes and freezing on the spot, his expression frustratingly neutral.

"Hiei," Kurama said.

"Kurama," Hiei replied.

"I see you found a way out of the city of ghosts and apparitions," Kurama said. "Ironic that it brought you back here, to the living world, the place you were trying to avoid coming to when you remained behind in the demon city. Did you happen to find the ferry girl Botan during your time there?"

Hiei said nothing and did not move, but Kurama saw a slight change in Hiei's eyes that indicated a degree of understanding.

"Yeah, Hiei!" Kuwabara added. "What did you do to Botan, huh? She went there looking for you! She's was such a nice, pretty, lady, and she's probably dead now because of you!"

Kurama held up a hand at Kuwabara to stop him.

"Please, Kuwabara, take Yukina and get out of here," he whispered. "Take her a safe distance from the crash site in case of a fire. Yusuke and I will catch up to you later."

Kuwabara scowled at Hiei a little longer before turning to Yukina and simpering his way over to her and offering to escort her out of the forest whilst trying to politely ignore the way she balked at the sight she was granted when his coat flapped open again. Once they had started to move, Kurama turned back to Hiei.

"Where is she, Hiei?" he asked in a low voice.

"That's not your concern," Hiei quietly replied.

"Actually, it is, Koenma is making me stand in for–"

Kurama stopped abruptly as Hiei shot off, apparently having decided that their conversation was over. Kurama sighed. With Yukina and Kuwabara safe, the only concern he had left was Yusuke, who may have run after the helicopter and be heading towards the crash site. And so he ran around the wreckage and back towards the mansion.

**

* * *

**

Botan untangled the last piece of her hair that had become caught in the finer branches of the tree she had crashed into and then turned to survey her surroundings. Hiei had guided her to Yukina's location and then, without warning, launched himself from her oar and at the helicopter. She had been so shocked by his actions and so busy watching him, she had crashed into a tree and fallen through its branches until her oar – still in her hands – had become stuck and halted her descent.

Hiei was gone from sight, and, despite having caught a glimpse of Kurama hanging from the helicopter by his Rose Whip, she could not see the redhead either. She sighed and sat onto her oar, carefully taking herself down to the ground.

The remains of the helicopter looked quite brutal, and she got a bad feeling from being around the wreckage, one that wasn't helped when something suddenly grabbed her ponytail and yanked back hard. She screamed in surprise and staggered back helplessly; but as suddenly as the tugging had begun, it stopped again.

"You're not Yukina," a voice grunted behind her.

Botan spun around and saw a short, overweight, bald man of exceptionally grotesque physical appearance.

"Who are you?" she asked.

He squinted at her curiously before talking again.

"Are you an ice maiden too?" he asked. "Do you make those pretty little gemstones too?"

Botan realised then that she was facing Yukina's abductor. Her first feelings were merely realisation and slight nausea as she thought about what he had done, but those feelings began to melt away as the flame of something far more impassioned and consuming began to burn inside of her. It was a strange feeling, one that she had never felt before, and one that she could not explain.

"You don't look human with that hair and those eyes," he added.

"You evil monster!" she growled.

Her oar had smacked him over the head before she even felt the burn of adrenaline in the muscles of her arms. He fell onto all fours awkwardly, touching a hand to one side of his face. He looked up at her, narrowing his eyes slightly in anger, and although none of that changed how she felt, when Botan saw a small trickle of blood escaping his nose she suddenly felt as though her soul had been removed from her body. It was as though she was no longer herself, but rather someone else watching as she began beating into him with her oar. She was yelling at him, but her hearing had faded and she could feel more than hear the sound of her voice. The only one coherent thought she could focus on was that the vile wastrel at her feet had made Hiei's sister suffer.

And then, as quickly as her senses had left her, they returned, and she paused, her oar poised and ready to strike. Her pulse was thundering through her temples and throat, her breathing loud and slightly hysterical and her entire body was shaking. She looked at the blade of her oar. It was covered with blood. She threw it down. She looked at Tarukane. His face was barely discernible amidst the blood. Her hands moved to cover her mouth.

He was dead.

"Botan?"

Botan yelped, her hands flicking away from her face to shudder in the air in front of her as her head snapped around to the figure at her side.

"What happened?"

It was Hiei. His eyes were on Tarukane.

"I didn't mean to…" Botan said faintly.

Her voice was hoarse, small and insignificant. Was that fear or from all the screaming?

"It was an accident!" she whimpered. "I was just so… I never meant to… Oh God, what have I done?"

Hiei lifted his eyes to hers and stepped towards her. He took hold of her elbows in his hands and turned her to face him fully.

"Botan, what is the penalty for a demon who kills a human?" he asked solemnly.

"Death," she replied. "And ten millennia in limbo."

She had spoken the answer more from instinct, and as soon as the words had left her mouth, she had forgotten what they were or even what Hiei had asked her.

"And what is the penalty for a ferry girl who kills a human?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I don't know!" she sobbed. "I don't think there is one! Ferry girls aren't supposed to kill! I don't think it's ever happened before!"

"Think, Botan, think," Hiei said.

He sounded far too calm for her liking.

"What do you think it might be?" he asked.

"A demon is expected to kill, and their sentence is severe," she said. "A ferry girl isn't mean to harm anyone or anything, so I imagine the sentence would be even more severe."

"For example…?"

"Erasure from existence."

Hiei nodded and released her. She almost wished that he had not, since his strong grip had been helping keep her shaking body steady. He bent down and picked up her oar, looking at it for a moment, a strange look passing over his eyes.

"You cut me open," he said quietly.

"What do you–"

Botan did not finish her question as the blade of oar collided with her head. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter:** Botan awakens and she's back in spirit world. Things are chaotic, but when she finally realises what has happened, she panics. Koenma is confused and concerned by her behaviour, and things only get worse when she finds out what has become of Hiei. **Chapter 17 – They Try To Pull Me Away**

**A/N:** (If anyone noticed) sorry about the delay getting this one up. I was doing all the usual Hogmanay/New Year stuff (it's a 3-5 day affair here) and I struggled with the middle part of this chapter (which probably shows).

Also! Extra crispy Bavarian sugar cookie to every person who correctly guesses what Hiei just did.


	17. They Try To Pull Me Away

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Bavarian sugar cookies (BSC, ironic TLA!) to: MystiKoorime, ReaperDemon and HereAfter!**

**Recap: **Yusuke and Kurama defeated Toguro but (without Hiei there to beat him up) Tarukane escaped with Yukina. Botan and Hiei escaped from the CGA and arrived in time to save Yukina from Tarukane, and in the ensuing chaos, Botan unintentionally killed Tarukane, and was then knocked out by Hiei.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 17: They Try To Pull Me Away**

Yusuke ran on, ignoring Kurama, who was trying to tell him to avoid the crash-site. He had been reasonably reassured when Kurama had told him that Kuwabara had shown up in time to take Yukina to safety, making the mission a success after all, but when Kurama had also told him that Hiei had been the cause of the crash and that he was still around the site of the wreckage, Yusuke had lost his temper: he was still pissed off with that little runt for betraying them all and trapping Botan in the city of ghosts and apparitions.

Kurama shouted after him once more, but Yusuke did not break stride, and, sure enough, as he weaved his way through a cluster of trees, he finally sighted Hiei, standing next to two fallen bodies with an oar in his hands.

Yusuke slowed to a halt as Hiei turned to face him.

"What the hell happened here?" he asked quietly.

He leaned to one side to see past Hiei. The nearest fallen body was Tarukane, though he was barely recognisable because he had been badly beaten. Leaning a little further, Yusuke finally made out who the second body was.

"Botan!" he cried, hurrying forwards.

Yusuke stopped just short of his friend as Hiei stepped into his path, brandishing what Yusuke could now see was Botan's oar. Yusuke slowly ran his eyes over the oar, the bloodstains on it finally registering in his mind. He looked down at Tarukane, finding his eyes open and staring up lifelessly. Botan was lying in an awkward, crumpled position with her eyes closed, but, other than a smear of blood in her hair and at one side of her head, she looked unharmed.

"What did you do?" he asked, moving his eyes back to Hiei.

"What does it look like I did, detective?" Hiei spat back sarcastically.

Yusuke glanced at Botan's oar again before returning his attention to Hiei.

"Hey, I understand you attacking that bastard Tarukane, but why the hell did you attack Botan too?" he demanded.

"She got in my way," Hiei replied, shrugging nonchalantly.

Yusuke started towards Botan, with the intention of simply checking whether or not she was alive, but before he reached her he found himself on the ground after being jabbed abruptly in the ribs with the blade of Botan's oar. He got up to his knees it time to catch the blade before it hit him again.

"What the hell is your problem, Hiei?" he demanded, tugging at the oar in the hope of getting it out of Hiei's hands.

"The last time we battled, you defeated me by sheer luck, detective," Hiei growled back. "Do you think you'll be so lucky this time?"

"You bastard!"

Yusuke roughly released the oar and launched himself at Hiei. He was out of spirit energy, and so this fight was going to be just like those he usually had at school: fought with his feet and fists. He collided with Hiei and they fell to the ground, Botan's oar bouncing away from them. Yusuke was too tired and worn out after his battle with the Toguro brothers to concentrate on strategy, and so he simply struck at Hiei anywhere he could reach: his face, his chest or his abdomen. They rolled over each other a few times, eventually stopping with Hiei on top. Despite being pinned down, Yusuke managed to strike Hiei hard several times, but when he paused to find out why, he realised that his dominance had been an illusion, as Hiei had stopped fighting to transform into his full demon form.

Yusuke yelped out a curse as Hiei's claws bit into his arms. He tried to bend his legs and push Hiei off, but something other than Hiei's physical presence was pinning him down. He looked up at the glowing third eye on Hiei's head, memories of the restraints he had been bound in the last time he had fought Hiei surfacing in his mind. He cursed again and began thrashing about. He did not manage to free himself, but, to his slight relief, Hiei's weight was suddenly lifted from him. He turned his head to watch as Hiei skidded away from him and then leapt up again and threw himself at Kurama. The two fell to the ground but quickly got up again, leaping apart.

Yusuke growled in frustration as the glowing red rings of psychic energy still held him down, despite Hiei being distracted by his battle with Kurama. He cursed again and tried to writhe around some more before finally sighing in defeat and looking about himself to assess the situation: Botan was still lying motionless next to Tarukane – who was clearly dead – and they were all still far too close to the crashed helicopter.

Yusuke cursed again.

**

* * *

**

Kurama hesitated, his eyes watching Hiei unblinkingly. Hiei was acting rather strangely, everyone was still too close to the crashed helicopter and Kurama could not think about either thing openly because he knew that Hiei would probably be able to read his thoughts on the matter and would likely misinterpret them.

"Release Yusuke," he tried.

"Why, so that he can attack me from behind?" Hiei spat back.

"We're all in danger here," Kurama said as calmly as he could. "That helicopter could catch fire and explode."

"Hn, fire isn't a problem for me, fox," Hiei replied.

Hiei's words sounded all the more sarcastic and malevolent as his voice had that grainy rasp it acquired when he reverted back to his full demon form. Kurama lowered his eyes slightly, noticing then that Hiei had something attached to his chest that was holding shut one of the additional decoy jagan eyes that had sprouted over his chest.

"What's that?" Kurama asked him.

He saw Hiei's top lip visibly twitch.

"That's not your concern," he said quietly.

Kurama sensed that, whatever the yellow, circular item Hiei bore was, it was clearly of some degree of importance. It bore the spirit world logo around the outer edge of it, but it was not a prisoner tracking device.

"Will you at least let us take the innocent to safety before we fight?" he asked.

Hiei glanced over his shoulder at the two fallen bodies.

"That bastard tortured Yukina, I wouldn't describe him as innocent," he sneered.

"I was talking about Botan, the ferry girl," Kurama replied. "And I think it would be a wasted effort taking Tarukane to safety, since I believe he is already beyond saving."

"Hn, he got what was coming to him," Hiei said.

"Perhaps that mentality is acceptable in demon world, but that's not the case here or in spirit world," Kurama pointed out. "Murder is murder, regardless of the motive. You won't get away with this."

"Just let us get Botan out of here, you selfish little ass!" Yusuke yelled at Hiei.

Hiei turned to glare at him.

"Let Kurama take her out of here, and I'll stay here and kick your ass since that's what you want," Yusuke added.

Hiei grunted and turned back to Kurama.

"I suppose I could allow that," he conceded. "I have a score to settle with the detective anyway, and you're only getting in my way, fox."

Kurama nodded.

"For what it's worth, thank you," he said.

Hiei gave him a strange look.

"Thank you for keeping her alive and thank you for letting me take her out of here," Kurama explained.

"What makes you think I kept her alive?" Hiei asked, his face twisting in disgust.

"There's no way she could have survived in the demon city alone," Kurama replied. "Someone must have helped her, and since she arrived here with you, I have to think that it was you."

Hiei's expression neutralised and he took a step back.

"Just get her out of here," he said.

Kurama nodded and hurried over to Botan's side.

"Hey, are you gonna manage to carry her with just one arm?" Yusuke asked him as he lowered himself onto one knee at Botan's side.

"Don't worry about us, worry about yourself," Kurama warned him. "Try to draw Hiei away from the wreckage, it's dangerous to linger here."

Yusuke gave him a flat look as he wriggled against the restraints still holding him down.

"You'll figure something out," Kurama replied.

He was not really sure that Yusuke would be able to escape, but he had to first get Botan to safety. His plan was to try to catch up to Kuwabara and then pass Botan to him before returning to assist Yusuke in defeating and apprehending Hiei. With his injured arm still not fully functioning, Kurama struggled to get Botan's dead weight off the ground, but once he had, he slung her over his uninjured shoulder and gave a nod to Yusuke, checked that Hiei was going to remain true to his word and let him go and then hurried off.

As he ran through the trees, Kurama could not help but wonder why Hiei had spared Botan's life in the demon city, how they had escaped, why they had returned together, why Hiei had not killed her along with Tarukane and why he was letting Kurama leave with her. Had they been the actions of any other soul, Kurama would have assumed some sort of bond between Hiei and Botan: but that was simply impossible, as they were enemies from different worlds.

It was odd though.

**

* * *

**

Botan smiled contentedly and snuggled deeper into her pillow. The sun was shining in on her, and her alarm had not sounded yet, so obviously she could sleep a little longer. She loved dozing in the warmth of the sunlight, and so rarely ever closed the curtains on her bedroom window. Everything around her smelt clean and fresh and she felt so relaxed and comfortable in her bed. It felt as though she had not slept in it for days, and she was enjoying being there even more than usual. She sighed and rolled onto her back, spreading her arms and legs at her sides. It was great to be home.

Botan's eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright. She was home. Literally. She was back in her own bedroom, in spirit world. She looked about herself frantically, and although nothing looked out of place, everything felt eerily unfamiliar to her and she felt like she was an intruder in someone else's room.

"Hiei!" she cried, pushing aside her bedding and launching herself at the door.

She slid the door aside so quickly it almost broke. She leapt over the threshold with no clue where she was going, too blinded by panic to care. Her last coherent memory was of Hiei throwing himself at the helicopter carrying his sister, and she did not even know if he had survived that reckless manoeuvre.

"Whoa there, Miss Botan!"

Botan let out a short, sharp scream of surprise as a large hand grabbed one of her arms and yanked her back. She was bustled back into her room before she noticed that two large ogres had been standing guard at either side on the outside of her door.

"I have to go!" she insisted.

"You have to stay in your room for now," one of the ogres replied, holding up a hand and moving to block the doorway with his bulk. "Lord Koenma's orders."

"Lord Ko…?"

Botan began pacing back and forth in frustration, pushing her hair back from her face with her palms. She realised then that her hair was loose, and that thought made her look down. She was dressed in her sleeping yukata, which someone had apparently put her into, as she had no knowledge of changing her clothes herself. She suspiciously glanced over each of the ogres in turn, but eventually decided that Ayame or one of her other ferry girl friends must have undressed her, as the ogres of spirit world were typically too well-mannered to invade a ferry girl's privacy.

"How did I get here?" she asked the ogres, hoping to at least get an answer to one of the many questions starting to consume her thoughts.

"Yusuke and Kurama took you here, Miss," one of them answered. "You were unconscious, you'd taken a blow to the head, so Lord Koenma ordered that you be sent here to rest, and he asked us to make sure that you stayed here until he had visited you."

"Yusuke and Kurama…"

Botan tried to remember what had happened, but her own confusion and her mounting concern for Hiei was making it almost impossible to concentrate. Where was Hiei? If she was in spirit world, was he still in the living world somewhere? Had he been killed in the helicopter crash?

She sighed and gave a dismissing wave of her hand to the ogres, who nodded their understanding and stepped out of her room, closing the door between them. She moved back over to her bed and sat down, chewing at her lip as she tried to remember what had happened. She remembered Hiei leaping from her oar and at the helicopter and she remembered the helicopter going out of control. She had not seen much else after that because she had then crashed into a tree, and she supposed that was when she had fallen unconscious and consequently been taken back to spirit world by Yusuke and Kurama. She knew Kurama had been nearby, because he had been hanging from the helicopter by his Rose Whip. And, she thought, as he had apparently survived, there was a good chance that Hiei and Yukina had too.

Botan began fidgeting with the collar of her yukata, which had folded back in on itself during her slumber, and as she straightened it out she felt it catch slightly on something. She yelped out an "oh" of realisation then and hurriedly opened out her gown, looking down at the Mejiru Shiiru label she still had stuck to her chest. The fact that it was still stuck to her skin was a good sign, as it meant that Hiei was still alive, and she immediately felt better in that knowledge: but when she saw that it was no longer blue, she began to panic again. She stared at the coloured circle in the centre of the label for a long time as she tried to remember what that colour indicated.

"Blue means all goes well," she muttered aloud. "Yellow means a minor injury and red means a critical wound…"

She groaned. Either the label she was wearing was faulty or she had neglected to learn the correct indication colours the label could turn, as it was not blue, yellow or red.

"Goodness," she sighed, closing her yukata over again. "What does orange mean?"

It was good that it was not red or white and falling off, she told herself, but even yellow was cause for concern, and surely orange was worse than yellow, since it was somewhere between yellow and red. Maybe the label was in transition, she decided. Maybe it was changing between yellow and red, and that was why it appeared orange. She momentarily felt pleased with herself for having figured that out, but mere seconds later she felt infinitely more worried as she began to debate whether the orange indicated that Hiei was going from red status to yellow or the other way around: either he was critically injured and recovering or he was mildly injured and hurting some more. Which was worse? Both circumstances indicated a critical wound, and the thought of Hiei suffering that much was too much for Botan to bear.

But where was Hiei? And why had he been hurt: was it just from the helicopter crash, or was it something else entirely? She had to find him and get to him. Nothing else mattered.

"Botan?"

Botan yelped, hurriedly tightening the ties of her yukata and standing up straight.

"Come in?" she called out awkwardly.

Her room door slid open and Koenma strode in. She smiled and bowed in greeting to him. He turned to face her, squinting up at her in a way that told her something very bad was happening, and she started to then worry about just why she was being confined to her room and guarded by two of the larger ogres usually assigned the duty of prison guards.

"Botan, I'm glad to see you awake and moving about," Koenma said, sounding less friendly than his words implied he was being. "How do you feel?"

"…Confused, Sir," she carefully replied.

"Yes, we all feel a little confused right now, Botan," he said.

He nodded at the ogres and they backed out of the room, closing the door behind them. He then turned back to Botan, his expression slightly darker and even more unsettling in her eyes.

"Botan, we have many, many things to discuss," he said quietly. "I don't know if I should be furious or just relieved."

Botan tried to answer him, but found herself at a loss for words, and so simply lowered her head.

"You were not given orders to go to the city of ghosts and apparitions," Koenma said when she did not answer him. "That was almost an act of insubordination."

"I had good intentions, Sir," she said faintly.

"Botan, you should know better than anyone that good intentions are meaningless if you act thoughtlessly because of them," he sternly replied.

"Yes, Sir," she said meekly.

"I'm amazed that you survived in demon world all this time," he said.

"Me too," she said.

"And I'm disappointed that when the SDF arrived to rescue you, you simple snuck out of the breach they created without reporting to them."

"Right…"

"I'm confused as to why you were sighted flying on your oar with Hiei."

"…Yes…"

"But most of all, I'm surprised that Hiei let you live."

Botan lifted her head slightly, letting her eyes meet her boss's.

"Sir?" she asked.

"He's already confessed to his crimes, but he has yet to explain to me why he was with you when you left the city of ghosts and apparitions," Koenma replied.

"His… Crimes?" Botan echoed.

"Yes, and as a witness and victim, I will need you to give a formal statement," Koenma carefully answered. "When you feel ready, of course. Obviously it would be better if you spoke to us sooner rather than later, as we're not in the habit of keeping prisoners in death row for longer than a week if we can help it."

Botan looked over at her door, a chill of dread swirling around her head and making her feel dizzy.

"I've been sentenced to death?" she asked.

Obviously she had, she decided, why else did she need two prison guards at her bedroom door?

"I can see that you're still a little insensible from the concussion," Koenma said.

He cleared his throat and then muttered something about her insensibility being typical even without a blow to the head, but she ignored it, instead wallowing in her own thoughts as she started to remember a little more about what had happened back in the forest in the living world: crashing her oar into the tree had not been what had knocked her out, because, she realised, she could remember getting down to the ground after the crash and coming face-to-face with the man who had abducted Yukina.

"Take a little longer to rest and collect your thoughts," Koenma suggested. "But don't leave it too long. My father is eager to expedite the execution, and if he does it before you give your testimony, the paperwork afterwards will be twice as bad. We already know what happened, Hiei did confess everything, but I'd like to hear your version of events regardless."

Botan slowly felt her returning memories drain away from her again.

"Hiei confessed everything?" she asked. "Hiei spoke to you? Where is he now?"

Koenma pulled a face at her.

"You need more rest," he said flatly. "I already told you where he is: death row."

Koenma had said that he was disappointed in her for going to the city of ghosts and apparitions without any order to do so and for failing to report to the Special Defence Force when they had arrived to rescue her, and so Botan wondered how he would feel about the fact that she literally bowled him over as she ran at her bedroom door, what he would think about her escaping her room against orders and if he would even care that she was flying her oar through the residency wing of his temple, something that was strictly prohibited for safety reasons.

As she soared out into the main atrium, she realised that she did not actually care. All that mattered to her right then was finding Hiei.

**

* * *

**

Koenma got to his feet and straightened out his clothing angrily. He was sure that he could hear George stifling laughter outside the room. He tried to ignore it, which was not especially difficult, as he had plenty of other things to distract his mind with: like the fact that his top ferry girl had just kneed him in the side of the head, ducked between the legs of one of the largest ogres in spirit world and taken off on her oar in a no-fly zone.

And all because she was eager to be reunited with a demon whose betrayal of spirit world had landed her stranded in a city in demon world.

"Which way did she go?" he asked one of the ogre guards who was watching him worriedly.

"To the right, Sir," the ogre replied.

"To the prison wing," Koenma concluded.

"Perhaps not, Lord Koenma," George said. "She was heading to the central atrium, she could be going anywhere from there."

"When I want to be given false hope by an idiot, I'll ask for it!" Koenma snapped at him.

"Sorry Sir," George simpered, pushing the tips of his index fingers together and looking pitiful.

"Just pick me up and start running after her," Koenma ordered.

"Right Sir," George agreed.

Koenma always felt a little undignified being carried by his faithful servant, but the ogre did have much longer and stronger legs than he did, and so it made more sense to travel that way. And being carried allowed him to concentrate more fully on his own thoughts. He had not quite known what to expect when Botan awoke, but he had certainly never expected her to blindly race to Hiei's side. He did not think that it was possible for Hiei to have enchanted her somehow with his jagan eye, as she was strong enough to be immune to his powers of hypnosis, but if she had been tainted by her stay in demon world, it was possible that she had come to sympathise with him somehow. There was a name for her condition in the human world – Stockholm Syndrome – but in spirit world such behaviour was generally considered to result from a soul that had always harboured ill intentions. Koenma needed to convince his father and the jurors of spirit world that Botan did not even know what an ill intention was, much less feel one towards anyone or anything: but as Botan had slipped past the Special Defence Force, shoved Koenma to the ground, bypassed two guards who had already told her not to leave her room, used her oar in a no-fly corridor and gone to the prison wing in search of a human-murdering demon, Koenma's task had just become infinitely more difficult to achieve.

If he could not convince King Enma that Botan was merely a victim of circumstance, that she was still a loyal servant of spirit world who understood the evils of demons and that her seemingly treasonous behaviour had been a mere misunderstanding, she would surely be erased from existence.

King Enma did not want a rebellious ferry girl spreading ill feelings amongst her peers, and Botan clearly did not realise how much danger she was in.

Botan had always been a loyal and hard worker, so obviously her change of behaviour was because of the taint or because her soft-hearted and – sadly – soft-headed ways had led to her taking pity on a criminal. Koenma was not sure which of the two was worst. If she was tainted, hiding the changes and convincing others that she was fine would prove very difficult, and Koenma himself would always wonder if he could ever truly trust his once most diligent of ferry girls, but if it was simply a matter of Botan using her heart to make logical decisions and her head to make emotional ones, was she really any use to spirit world any more? She was not stupid, but she did lack common sense and she was often forgetful and erratic, but none of those things had ever stopped her doing her job effectively before.

As George sprinted along the corridor that connected the prison wing to the main atrium, Koenma started to hear where Botan was long before he saw where she was. To borrow a human saying that seemed almost comically ironic, she was making enough noise to wake the dead.

"Let me go!" she screamed.

Several ogres were talking back to her in low, muted voices that were nothing more than a soft rumble of noise that was entirely drowned out every time Botan spoke.

"Get your hands off of me!" she yelled. "You can't stop me! Let me through! I have a right to be here! You can't stop me visiting an inmate!"

As they descended the set of stone steps that led into the basement of the prison wing – the section of the prison wing otherwise known as death row – Koenma started to see the kerfuffle ensuing by the door to the double row of prison cells reserved for prisoners sentenced undeniably to death. Botan was in the centre of a group of three ogres, her sleeping yukata loose on her frame and threatening to fall open at any moment and her hair loose and unkempt from her having slept on it. She had somehow managed to raise herself above the ogres, her right foot standing on the thigh of one of the guards and her left wedged into the crossbar of another guard's yari. She was pushing each of her elbows into the head of an ogre and her face was dangerously close to the largest of the ogres, who looked almost like he belonged in demon world, and she was shouting into his face quite brazenly.

"Get out of my way!" she demanded.

She had been shouting so hard and for so long, her voice was starting to break.

"Please Miss, you have to stand down," the large ogre quietly replied.

"You're the one who needs to stand down, Mister!" she argued back.

"This doorway behind me is set to only allow passage to the guards of this prison, Miss!" the ogre insisted.

"That won't stop me!"

"Begging you pardon Miss, but it will. You'll be very badly hurt if you try to force your way through there."

"Poppycock!"

Koenma sighed.

"Botan?" he said.

The guards all froze, clearly looking torn between continuing to struggle against Botan and bowing to the prince of the underworld. Botan was still trying to climb over the ogres.

"Botan!" Koenma said sharply.

She stopped struggling but did not move or acknowledge his presence.

"Goodness Botan, you're making a fool of yourself," he said. "Please, step away from that door."

As he said the word "please" Koenma distinctly saw Botan flinch. As the heir to the throne of spirit world, he was not in the habit of pleading with anyone for anything, and apparently Botan realised that his choice of words was a reflection of his sincerity. Slowly she pushed herself back and then, grabbing at the shoulders of each of the ogres she was standing on, she unhooked her foot from the yari and stepped off the ogre's thigh, lowering herself to the floor. She adjusted her yukata and wiped her hands at her cheeks before tucking her hair behind her ears and finally turning around to face Koenma.

"That's better," he said with a sigh. "Now, let's talk about this sensibly, shall we?"

"I have to see him," she muttered.

She was staring at something to one side of George's feet and her eyes looked hollow. It was clear that she had been crying. She looked worn out, which she possibly was after causing such havoc, but her breathing was steady and she was not sweating.

"Excuse me?" Koenma asked.

"I have to see him, Sir," she said again.

Koenma rolled his eyes.

"I wasn't concerned that you didn't address me as "Sir", Botan," he said patiently. "I'm concerned that you're asking to visit a demon who has killed a human and proudly admitted to it."

"You don't understand Sir, it wasn't like that," she said faintly, her eyes still staring at the blank point on the ground.

Koenma sensed that there was perhaps more going on than he had at first suspected there to be, and suddenly he was not really sure that he wanted to hear what Botan had to say about her time in demon world and Tarukane's death.

"Why don't we go back up to my office, I'll have the ogre bring us some nice, sweet honey tea, and we can talk about this calmly and sensibly, okay?" he tried.

Botan shook her head. Her eyes slowly lifted up until they reached his, and for a few seconds she paused, staring into his eyes with a bewildered and almost vacant look before she turned around the face the prison guards again.

"Can he hear me?" she asked them.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Miss?" one of the guards replied.

"Hiei," she said. "Can he hear me through that door?"

"The way you yell, I think half of spirit world can hear you, Miss," another guard muttered sarcastically.

"Good," Botan said, causing the sarcastic guard to flinch and glare at her as though she was mad. "Hiei!" she yelled. "Hiei, can you hear me?"

She paused, as though expecting to hear a response, and then cupped her hands over her mouth and started shouting again.

"Hiei, they won't let me in to see you!" she said. "They try to pull me away, but they won't succeed! I won't leave you, Hiei! I won't turn my back on you, I promise! Please don't think I've rejected you like those others did to you before. I'll never let you down Hiei, I love you!"

Koenma groaned out a curse and dropped his face into his hands. George almost dropped him in shock at hearing a profanity leave his lips, and although even Koenma himself was aware that it was the first time in his long life that he had ever sworn, he felt that the situation warranted the use of the word he had chosen. When he lifted his head again Botan was facing him, her head tilted slightly and her eyebrows knitted in concern.

"Sir?" she asked. "Did you just say oh f–"

"My office Botan," he interrupted her. "Now."

"But Sir, I–"

"Right now Botan, that's an order!"

Botan's face twisted into an expression Koenma had never seen her wear before, one that made her look almost vicious, but it did not remain that way for long as she was slowly overtaken by the lost and bewildered look again.

"Okay," she muttered, holding up one hand, her oar clunking into it.

"Put that away," he warned her.

She looked surprised at his words at first but then a look of realisation passed over her eyes and she visibly paled.

"Of course Sir," she said softly, banishing the oar again. "It's just that I'm in my bare feet, and I–"

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you left your quarters," Koenma tersely cut her off. "Now move!"

She nodded and carefully walked around George, who turned as she passed and began to follow her back up the steps to the main prison. Ordinarily Koenma would have made her walk behind him, as was customary, but, given her unpredictable behaviour since her return from the city of ghosts and apparitions, he decided that it was best to keep her where he could see her.

And now, worst of all, she had given him another reason to distrust her: she had just declared her love for a demon who was, deservedly, on death row.

**

* * *

**

Botan tried not to break pace as she marched back through the temple towards Koenma's office, but her feet ached from walking on the hard floors. If she had not been in so much pain, she might have found it funny that the floors were hard, bare marble, stone or wood and the walls were decorated with plush, hand-sewn rugs. She was observing and thinking about her surroundings far more than she usually would and certainly far more than was appropriate, but her mind was doing something quite strange since she had been taken away from the entrance to the basement prison wing. She seemed to want to think about stupid, inconsequential and irrelevant nonsense.

Thinking about stupid, inconsequential and irrelevant nonsense almost made it seem as though what was really happening was not actually really happening.

On her way to attempt to visit Hiei – dodging more diligent ferry girls who had warned her not to fly through the domestic wing of the temple and throwing piles of paperwork into disarray as she flew too close to administration ogres in the atrium – Botan had started to remember what had happened before she had fallen unconscious. More specifically, she had remembered how she had fallen unconscious: she had murdered Tarukane with her oar and Hiei had then smacked her over the head with her oar.

And then apparently Hiei had confessed that he had been the one to kill Tarukane, landing himself in spirit world prison, facing execution.

The more she had thought about it – and the journey from her bedroom to the prison wing was, understandably, a very long one, affording her plenty of time to think about it – she had realised why Hiei had asked her about the different sentencing spirit world would impose upon a human-killing demon and a human-killing ferry girl: he was asking because he intended to take the blame for her. But why had he done that? Why would he willingly sentence himself to death to spare her erasure from existence?

Had the situation been reversed, Botan was not really even sure that she would have done the same for him, and that thought had been the last coherent one she had experienced before literally throwing herself at the prison guards and demanding a visit with Hiei.

"Botan," Koenma sighed as George placed him into his chair behind his desk. "I don't even know where to begin with you."

Botan wanted to tell him that Hiei was innocent and that he ought to release him immediately, but professing Hiei's innocence meant facing two things she barely had the courage to think about much less admit to: first of all that she was the real murderer, and secondly that Hiei had willingly taken the blame for her, willingly laid down his life in order to spare her.

"You don't have to execute him," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm afraid we do, Botan," Koenma replied. "Spirit world laws are fairly rigid at best, but when it comes to a demon killing a human, the law is enforced without question in all circumstances: the murderer is executed and sent to limbo."

Botan felt a flutter of dread in her stomach and her knees threatened to give way beneath her. She had forgotten about what happened to human-killing demons after they were killed.

"Ten thousand years of…?" she asked hoarsely.

Her throat ached from all the yelling she had done earlier, and even though her voice was faint, she felt as though she was still yelling.

"Pain and suffering, yes," Koenma finished for her. "A human life is short and precious, regardless of how evil the human soul in question might have been."

"But Sir, Tarukane did terrible things to Yukina," Botan tried.

"And I would have taken that into account as Hiei's motivation and fought to lessen his sentence had his life before this incident been replete with good deeds, but that is not the case," Koenma replied.

"You're treating him like a monster!"

"He is a monster! Have you forgotten already what he did when he stole the Shadow Sword?"

"You don't understand!"

"No Botan, you don't understand."

"If you won't fight for Hiei, then I will!"

"I don't recommend that, Botan. If you stand before my father and confess your love for Hiei and demand that he be spared, you will be sentenced alongside Hiei. Is that what you want, Botan?"

Botan paused for long enough to let her mind process what Koenma had just said. Her mind, which had been strangely blank, offered her only one answer, and so she gave it.

"I would be sentenced alongside Hiei?" she asked.

"Yes Botan, you would," Koenma confirmed.

"So I would be sent to limbo too?"

"Yes, you would."

"So Hiei and I would be together for ten thousand years?"

Koenma's face drooped, his pacifier fell from his mouth and hit his desk with a soft clack and finally his head dropped into his hands.

And then, for the second time that day, Botan heard Koenma use a word that even Yusuke rarely resorted to.

**

* * *

**

**Next Chapter:** Kurama visits Hiei and they have an insightful discussion, and Botan finally manages to convince Koenma to let her visit Hiei too. After a long discussion, Hiei and Botan come to the conclusion that there is only one way to deal with what has happened. **Chapter 18 – Bleeding Love**

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**

**A/N:** This part of the story is where I worry about repeating myself (because this sort of happened in part 3 of "My Downfall"). It's not exactly the same, since it was never really dire when Hiei offered himself up for arrest in place of Botan in MD, whereas this time it kinda is quite dire, so hopefully it's not too samey.

…I can't believe "samey" is actually a word.

Please review.


	18. Bleeding Love

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Penultimate chapter**

**Recap: **Hiei took the fall for Botan killing Tarukane and landed himself in spirit world prison, awaiting execution for his crimes. Botan lost the plot and declared her love for him publicly. And that was about it.

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**Chapter 18: Bleeding Love**

Kurama nodded politely to the ogre holding the door open for him. He stepped through the doorway – which was effectively a hole in the wall, and a potential trip hazard – and found himself in a dark and dreary corridor, either side of which was lined with exceptionally small and simplistic prison cells.

"Knock three times when you need out," the guard advised him.

"Thank you, I will," Kurama replied.

The ogre stepped back out and closed the door, shutting out even more of the light. In near night-time conditions, even Kurama's keen eyes could not see the end of the corridor any more. All the cells were empty expect for the first one on his right, inside which was a small shadow, somehow still looking infinitely blacker than his surroundings despite the dark conditions.

"Hiei," Kurama said, approaching the bars.

"Kurama," Hiei's voice answered him.

"I had to see it with my own eyes to truly believe it," Kurama continued. "I thought you were fighting Yusuke just to "settle your score" with him, I had no idea you were feigning guilt and trying to get yourself arrested."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Kurama leaned closer to the bars, but Hiei still appeared as nothing more than a black blob in the back corner of the cell.

"Do you remember the conversation we had in the city of ghosts and apparitions?" he asked.

"Yes," Hiei replied. "You told me I was hot-headed and impetuous and I reminded you that I was without injury whilst you were badly wounded because you're too cautious in battle."

Kurama smiled. He could not tell if Hiei had deliberately brought up the wrong conversation or not: the little fire demon's sense of humour was as dark and dry as everything else about him was.

"After that, Hiei," he said. "I meant around the time Kuwabara was donating his life energy to Yusuke in order to revive him."

"You mean when I had the idea to stay in demon world and you wished you'd thought of it first and that your human body and conscience would have let you remain there with me?" Hiei shot back.

"Before that," Kurama patiently replied. "I mean when you asked me why Yusuke would kill himself to save the life of another. You said only the challenge of a fight appealed to you, and that you would never save another soul if doing so mean that you would die in the process."

Hiei remained silent and so Kurama continued.

"I believe you said "I'd never do it. The challenge is enough without taking someone else's slack". Or something else equally as droll."

"Hn, you always were a cocky bastard," Hiei replied. "But you're the most annoying kind of cocky bastard: you're the quiet, secretive kind."

"Well now that I've got you talking, perhaps you could tell me if you now understand why Yusuke killed himself to spare Keiko?" Kurama asked.

"I don't understand humans any more now than I ever did, fox," Hiei said.

"That wasn't what I asked you. And if you are going to twist everything I say for your own amusement, you leave me with no other choice but to be direct: Hiei, did you confess to murdering Tarukane to spare Botan because you're in love with her?"

Hiei was quiet for so long, Kurama wondered if he was even still there. The darker shadow at the back of the cell was the only sign that he was indeed still present, but it still seemed odd that he had not reacted verbally or physically to what was more of an accusation than a question.

"Are you in love with her, Hiei?" Kurama asked again.

"That word doesn't mean the same thing to me as it does to a human," Hiei quietly replied. "You've come to believe in the human kind of love since you've lived in their world, so I don't understand the question."

"It doesn't matter which standpoint you take," Kurama said. "Either you love her or you don't."

"The standpoint is the most important thing of all. The word love is meaningless from the standpoint of someone who doesn't believe in it, but it's more important than life itself to someone who does believe."

"Then by that logic, you must believe in love Hiei, because you have placed more importance on your love for Botan than your own life by putting yourself in this place."

Kurama waited for Hiei to respond and was again surprised when he did not.

"You do fully understand that you will be executed and sent to limbo, a place of continual pain and suffering?" he asked.

"I'm not a fool, Kurama," Hiei replied.

Kurama slid back a step as Hiei finally moved. He did not completely distrust Hiei, least of all after all they had been through together in the last year, but he did know that Hiei expressed himself through his violence, and he had been asking him some very provocative questions.

"I understand my malfeasance, and I know you're probably here to try to tell me that your cautious ways were for the best, because, had I been as cautious as you are, I would not have let myself be caught."

Hiei stepped into the light and Kurama finally saw his face. He was smirking and his eyes sparkling with confidence, and he genuinely seemed as though he was enjoying the dire straits he was in.

"I shouldn't have hung around to brag to the detective about it," he said. "I should have just killed the bastard and run."

"You didn't kill him, Hiei," Kurama pointed out.

"Did you see me kill him?" Hiei asked, his expression unwavering.

"No, all I saw was you hit the ferry girl," Kurama replied. "But I was close enough to hear what you said to her before you conveniently knocked her out in time for Yusuke's arrival at the scene."

"That human bastard used my sister and sold her misery to line his own pockets," Hiei growled, his smirk fading. "The only thing I regret was that I let my anger get the better of me and I beat him to death. Had I been thinking more clearly, I would have tortured him over several days, enjoyed listening to him begging for me to kill him until I grew bored of the sound of his screams, and then – and only then – I would have slaughtered him."

"You are the sort to exact such revenge, but the fact still remains that you did not kill Tarukane. The fate you just described yourself inflicting on him is far more your style. Even in anger, you would not have taken his life so abruptly. I'm not suggesting that Botan intended to kill him, but I know that she did kill him. The only thing I don't know is why you would now volunteer to take the blame in her stead."

"Then I'll say to you what you said to me back in the city of ghosts and apparitions: trust me Kurama, there are reasons."

Kurama expected Hiei to explain himself more fully, but instead he granted him one last lop-sided smirk and then dissolved back into the darkness, resuming his position as an indefinable black shape in the back corner of his cell.

"You understand that you are going to be executed and sentenced to a quite terrible place in the afterlife?" he asked.

He waited for Hiei to answer or even to move until his felt a twinge of impatience before sighing and giving up.

"I always believed you had the potential to be a noble soul, Hiei," he said. "And today, with this act, you've proved that. My thoughts are with you, friend."

"Hn."

Kurama waited a little longer to see if Hiei would say any more, but again he remained silent, and so Kurama knocked three times on the door. As the guards opened the door a shaft of light swept over Hiei's cell and his shadow took a little more definition and the last thing Kurama saw as he stepped out was a pair of intense, glowing red eyes watching him.

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Koenma lifted his head and his eyes almost popped out of his head. Botan had eased her yukata down over her shoulders and she was looking down at herself. Although she was not revealing anything inappropriate, the material was splitting over one of her thighs and the whole garment was dangerously loose about her frame.

"Now it's a jolly ochre," she sighed. "Sir, what does ochre mean?"

Koenma waited until she had covered herself again before answering.

"George is a jolly ogre…?" he said faintly.

She looked at him as though he was the one who had asked something stupid.

"The Mejiru Shiiru, Sir," she said, poking a finger at her chest.

He frowned slightly and she pushed down the collar of her yukata to reveal that she had a Mejiru Shiiru label stuck onto her skin.

"So that's where that went…" he muttered.

"It's not really yellow, Sir," she said.

"Botan, we recovered the spirit detective items from you when you returned here," he said, deciding to change the subject since he had an ideal opportunity to. "But we didn't find the Concentration Ring. Do you know what happened to it?"

"It flew away on a bird."

Koenma waited for Botan to expand or at least to tell him that she was making some sort of joke – some sort of very poorly delivered and unfunny joke.

"Right…" he said when he realised that she was not going to continue. "Well, Botan, we need to get a formal statement from you regarding what happened in the forest."

"Can I visit Hiei now?"

Koenma gave her a hard stare, but he quickly found himself struggling. She looked pitiful and pathetic, and her eyes were still wide and bewildered like a lost animal.

"Okay," he said, nodding his head. "I don't think this is a good idea, but if it will help you understand the reality of this situation then fine. Ogre, take her to visit Hiei, tell the guards I authorised the visit."

Botan brightened up a little then, but Koenma sensed that her cheeriness would not last long. When Hiei had first arrived in spirit world – after being literally dragged into Koenma's office by Yusuke and Kurama – he, despite being quite badly beaten, had been angry, aggressive and arrogant. He had been boastful about his crimes and openly confessed to having kept Botan as his sex slave during her time in the city of ghosts and apparitions, enjoying both taking advantage of her body and the fact that she had misinterpreted his actions as being signs of affection.

Botan's behaviour was, Koenma supposed, at least validation of Hiei's claims: apparently she had been foolishly and completely taken in by his malicious lies.

**

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Botan had almost eaten her lip off of her face by the time she arrived back at the entrance to the basement prison Hiei was being held in. The guards all straightened up and eyed her over cautiously, but a few whispered words from George made them back down and step aside, and one of them opened the door to the row of cells reserved for the condemned.

"Be careful, Miss," the guard said gruffly as Botan took exaggerated steps over the doorway to avoid tripping herself up. "He's a bit of a wild one and he can move faster than your eye can see. Stay well back from the bars."

Botan watched him until he finished speaking before turning to the first cell on her right – the only one currently occupied in death row – and throwing herself at the bars.

"Hiei!" she cried.

She heard the guard insult her intelligence behind her under his breath.

"Oh Hiei, I was so worried about you!" she continued, reaching a hand through the bars.

"Knock three times when you're done," the guard called to her. "…Assuming you've still got a hand left by then…"

Botan ignored him, pushing her arm forwards until the bars began to press painfully into her shoulder. She stretched out her fingertips towards the shadow by the back of the cell, but as the guard closed the door and shut out most of the light, plunging them into darkness, Botan lost sight of Hiei altogether.

"Hiei, please!" she whispered. "Talk to me! Why are you doing this? Why did you tell Lord Koenma that you killed Tarukane? And what happened to you? The Mejiru Shiiru label I'm wearing – it's almost yellow now – it shows that you're hurt!"

She felt a slight displacement of air around her and then something sharp on her chest. She yelped and retracted her hand, looking down to see her yukata a little loosened. She started to adjust it before stopping short and staring at the point on her chest where she had felt the slight, sharp tug.

"Hiei?" she muttered.

She lifted her head to see him standing facing her. He had positioned himself directly in front of her, but he was still far enough back from the bars that he was mostly in shadow, and she could barely make out anything more than his eyes and the general outline of his body. He reached out one hand towards her, his fingers just passing through the bars.

"Why did you take it off?" she demanded as she saw that he was holding up the Mejiru Shiiru label he had just torn off of her.

"You have no need for it any more," he said.

Botan stumbled slightly. He might as well have just run her through with his katana.

"I see," she said faintly.

"If you keep it on, you'll watch it and worry yourself needlessly," he said.

"But… I need it on to know that you're alright when we're apart," she said.

"You'll always be thinking about it as long as you are wearing it," he replied. "And that's stupid. And you said it falls off when the person who attached it dies, so I don't think it would have stayed on you for very much longer anyway."

"Hiei… Why did you tell them it was you?"

"Why do you think?"

Botan pressed herself again the bars of the cell in an attempt to get closer to Hiei, but he did not move. She slid both her hands through the bars and took a hold of his outstretched hand in hers.

"I won't let them take you away from me," she said.

"You must," he said.

"But I won't."

"There's no way out of this. Somebody had to take the fall for this, and if I die, my soul will at least live on in the afterlife. If you take the blame, you will vanish from existence forever. It makes more sense this way."

"More sense?"

Botan squeezed at Hiei's hands as tears began to blur her eyes. How could he be speaking so matter-of-factly about his own death? His own death that was her fault, she thought miserably.

"I never meant to kill him, it was an accident!" she sobbed.

"Don't torture yourself over that worthless bastard's miserable life," Hiei assured her. "Somebody else would have killed him eventually if you had not. He got what he deserved."

"But what about you?" Botan asked. "This isn't what you deserve!"

"Maybe it is," he answered.

"Don't talk like that!"

"I've been a criminal all my life, this is probably a fitting end for me."

"Stop that! This isn't the end! It can't end like this!"

"It must. If you try to take the blame now, I'll be convicted anyway for lying and perverting the course of justice, and you'll be condemned with me."

"But if they damn us together, we can be together."

"We can't be together, ferry girl."

"But I can't be without you. What about… You were supposed to… To finish my education in love, remember?"

Botan lifted Hiei's hand to her lips and kissed the knuckles of each of his fingers in turn. As she did so, she could not help but notice that the skin on his knuckles was lacerated, apparently from a fight.

"You were a very fast learner," he replied.

Although she could not clearly see his face, Botan could hear from his voice that he was smiling as he spoke.

"And now I think you're ready to make your own mind up about what the real meaning of love is," he said.

She started to disagree with him, but as he touched his other hand to hers she stopped talking and began sniffling as more tears escaped her eyes.

"You put yourself in danger by coming after me when I stayed in the city of ghosts and apparitions," he said. "And you took a great risk when you decided to trust me. But things will always go back to what the way they ought to be: you are meant to stay here and help people, and I am meant to oppose the law for hurting people. You don't need to take any more risks or put yourself in any more danger. At least, not because of me."

Hiei slid his hands from hers. Botan tried to hold onto them, but she lost her grip in confusion as she felt something sharp pressing into one of her palms. She drew her hands back through the bars and then turned them over, opening out her fists in front of herself.

"That… Doesn't…" she began weakly, her eyes locked onto the glimmering object resting on one of her palms.

"I took it back because the bird didn't do what it promised to," Hiei explained. "I didn't want to give it back to you because I didn't like how powerful it made you. But I have no use for it, and I know Koenma is looking for it."

Botan poked a finger at the Concentration Ring, silently wondering when and how Hiei had managed to take it back from the bird demon he had once given it to.

"I can't go on without you Hiei," she said, her eyes still on the ring. "I won't go on without you. I'd rather be erased from existence or sent to limbo. My existence here would just be empty."

"Hn, that defeats the point of my being here, idiot," he replied.

"I know, but I can't bear it, Hiei!"

Botan stuffed the Concentration Ring into the folds of her yukata and then reached her hands through the bars again.

"I like your demon world love, but I love you the spirit world way," she said. "Eternally and devotedly. I know you don't believe in it and you don't understand it or feel it, but I do. And… I wanted to show that to you, but I can't do that if you… If they… I just can't!"

Botan tried to stretch her fingers out to touch Hiei, but he was just beyond her reach. He remained that way for some time before taking each of her hands in his and taking two decisive steps forward, bringing himself into the little amount of light there was to be had. Botan gasped, pulling her hands from his and touching quivering fingertips to the myriad of minor wounds he had about his face and neck. He was dressed in his long coat and scarf and so his skin was mostly hidden from her view, but a slight tug at his scarf showed her that his wounds were multiple. They were far from serious, but seeing them pained her regardless.

"You should have just left me," she said, her eyes roving over the little bloody imperfections and discolourations in his skin. "If you had escaped, I would have been blamed for my crime, and you would be free."

Hiei grabbed her wrists suddenly and firmly, his actions making her immediately meet his eyes in confusion.

"You don't understand," he said sternly. "I had to do this."

"No you didn't!" she argued.

"Yes I did. I may be a demon and a criminal, but I have my own honour code, and I abide by it at all times, and in this case, I had to make this sacrifice."

"But I can't stand it!"

"You must let me do this."

"There has to be another way!"

"If I don't do this, you will be blamed, and I can't stand that."

Botan gasped.

"Surely you realise that?" Hiei asked her.

"Yes, but hearing you say it just makes it all the more…"

Her voice trailed off but the remainder of her speech was still echoing around her mind. What Hiei had said, what he was doing, the decision he had made: it was all incredibly romantic. For someone who did not believe in romance, he had certainly done his share of romantic things recently, she thought.

"I wanted more time with you," she said instead. "It's not fair. I was only just getting to know you, to understand you, to love you, and now it all has to end. It's just… Not fair."

"Isn't that the way it's meant to be with your spirit world love?"

Botan tilted her head slightly, feeling even more confused when she saw that Hiei was smiling and actually almost looked genuinely amused.

"Isn't this just like that story you told me about the humans who died before they could ever be together and the idiot human who lived beyond them and thought that he saw their spirits dancing in the moonlight? Hn, I suppose this is your lesson to me now in the eternal, spirit world love: spirits dancing in the moonlight."

Botan studied Hiei's face for a long time. She could not tell if he had intended his words to sound as incredibly romantic as they had or if he had been mocking the whole premise of true love. He was smiling ironically, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes.

"I've had other lovers before you, ferry girl," he continued. "Some for less time and some for longer. Every time it ended when I was ready for it to. You are the first lover I have ever left feeling that I would have liked more time with you."

"I want more time with you too, Hiei!" Botan blurted out. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"

"Your love was a kinder, gentler and softer kind that I am accustomed to," he replied, ignoring her outburst. "But it was the greatest of all."

"It doesn't have to end!"

"Spirits dancing in the moonlight?"

"Stop that! I'm being serious!"

"It always has to end in my experience."

"And it never does end in my experience!"

Botan sighed, blinking away more tears.

"Stop upsetting yourself, woman," Hiei said, his voice softer than before. "It's unnecessary."

"I'm upset because I care!" she stubbornly replied.

She turned her head from him, looking back at the door she had entered the prison wing through. The frame was highlighted by the light from the corridor beyond, and it almost seemed as though what lay beyond the door was another world: it was like being stuck in the demon city all over again, Botan thought miserably.

"We're never free," she muttered, speaking more to herself than Hiei. "In that city, here, anywhere. We're never free. You were right, I am a slave of spirit world."

"You have a duty here," Hiei answered her.

"Duty…"

Botan's mind blanked of everything else apart from that one word. Her eyes slowly moved to the clipboard mounted on the wall beside the door, barely visible in the low lighting, but its position alone indicating what it was. Botan slid her hands from Hiei's and approached the door. She carefully took hold of the clipboard in both hands and eased it up and off of the hook that had been holding it in place. She then turned around to let the light from the door shine onto the pages. It was a strain to read them, but she did not really need to see the specifics to know what all the writing represented.

"What are you doing over there?" Hiei called to her.

She lifted her eyes to look at him. He had moved further forwards, his arms pushed through the bars and his elbows resting on a crossbar. His forehead was rested against a bar and a few rogue spikes of his hair were poking through the gaps between the bars.

"This is a rota sheet," she explained, tapping a finger against the pages she had been studying. "Every guard has to sign in and out at the start and finish of his duty."

"Why is that important?" Hiei asked.

"I have an idea," Botan replied, looking down at the pages again.

She began scanning through the weeks' worth of sign-in sheets, quickly noticing a pattern but continuing through every page to be sure that it was consistent.

"What are you doing?" Hiei asked her.

"I've noticed something," she replied, looking up from the clipboard. "The guards work set shifts, and I can see on here that the guard who works the twilight shift always leaves slightly early. The guard who works the early shift – the shift that follows the twilight shift – is always on time, and never early, so there is a break of about ten minutes where there is no guard at the door."

"I noticed that too when I was in the main prison," Hiei agreed. "But the doors are sealed with some sort of barrier that only the guards can open, so it doesn't matter anyway."

"But there is an over-ride to open the doors in case of an emergency," Botan said.

"…So?"

"So if I came down here tonight, after the twilight shift guard has left, I could over-ride the seals on the doors and let you out."

Hiei leaned more of himself against the bars.

"That wouldn't work," he said slowly.

"It could work," Botan insisted. "You're so fast, nobody here would even see you run out."

"They would sense my demonic aura," Hiei pointed out.

"But by then we'd be long gone," Botan replied. "There's a portal to the living world outside of an annexe of the temple not far from here. Didn't you say you knew of places to hide in the living world? They wouldn't ever have to find us."

Hiei lowered his eyes to the ground and took on a thoughtful look.

"This could work, Hiei," Botan insisted.

"It's very dangerous," he replied. "Will they know it was you who broke the seals on the doors?"

"No," she said.

"If we were caught, wouldn't you be punished severely for aiding and abetting a murderer?"

Botan hung the clipboard up again and walked back over to where Hiei was stood.

"We can do this," she said firmly. "I know we can. We conquered Maze Castle together, didn't we? Now let's do this. Let's go to the living world, far away from prying eyes and then… We'd be free. We could…"

"Dance in the moonlight?"

"Yes! We can do this Hiei! We can be free and we can be together!"

Botan reached her hands through the bars and Hiei took them in his. He avoided looking directly at her for a long time, but she could see that he was thinking carefully about what she had said.

"You can open these doors and get me out of spirit world?" he eventually asked, meeting her eyes directly.

She nodded.

"Don't worry about a thing, I know my way around, and I can easily get you out of here without being seen," she assured him.

"You understand the consequences you face if you are caught?" he asked her carefully.

"I understand them, but I don't care about them," she frankly replied.

He grinned and tightened his grip on her hands.

"Alright then," he agreed.

More tears welled up in Botan's eyes, but this time they were an expression of her joy.

"I'll come back tonight when the guard has finished his shift," she said. "And then we'll leave. Together."

She smiled and started to pull back but Hiei held onto her hands firmly.

"Kiss me before you go," he said.

Botan paused, something about the tone of his voice and the way he was looking at her striking her as odd. She knew that she probably ought to ask him about it or at least to be concerned by it, but the thought of kissing him was robbing her of all logic and so instead she stepped closer to the bars and pressed her face between two bars. Hiei moved closer to her and released her hands to move his hands to her shoulders. He eased her back slightly to that she was not squashed against the bars and then moved his face closer to hers. She sighed lightly and closed her eyes, moaning involuntarily as she finally felt the warmth of his lips against hers. There was something quite uncomfortable and awkward about trying to kiss someone through the bars of a prison cell, but, in Botan's mind at least, it was divine regardless.

It was a physical reminder that they were on opposite sides of the laws of life – he was a demon criminal and she was an assistant spirit detective – but she was focussing on the fact that, in a matter of hours, they would be free of the laws of spirit world and the evils of demon world and together with nothing and no-one to stand in their way.

**

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When Botan walked back through the door of the basement prison, pausing to wave at Hiei one last time as she went, Koenma picked up the remote control for his television. He waited until Botan had been closed out of the prison before he switched the television off. He had seen and heard more than enough already. He had worried that Botan might do or say something irrational, but he had decided that he could only truly understand what she was thinking if he let her visit Hiei, and so he had: but of course he had secretly watched her visit through the security cameras that had filmed it.

He had feared seeing and hearing a lot of things, but hearing Botan confess to killing a human, hearing her plot to free a demon criminal from prison and abandon her duties and life in spirit world to be with him and finally seeing her kiss Hiei was far worse than anything he had imagined.

Which was ironic, because usually he was quite pessimistic when he thought ahead to potential disasters.

Koenma slowly turned his head, finding his nose almost touching George's. The blue ogre was leaning over his desk, facing the large television screen standing beyond it, but his eyes were on Koenma.

"How long have you been standing there?" Koenma asked him.

"I'm always standing here, Sir," George replied, without a hint of irony.

"Except when I need you, yes…" Koenma sighed.

"Should I warn the guards about what we just heard, Sir?" George asked. "Maybe we should talk to the guard on the twilight shift, and make sure that he doesn't leave his post until the guard on the early shift arrives to relieve him of his duties."

"No, none of that will be necessary."

"But Sir, if we don't take precautions, Botan will release Hiei from his prison cell."

"Yes, that's what I'm counting on."

George pouted – as well as a creature with fangs could – and gave Koenma the sort of look that clearly indicated he did not understand.

"I don't expect you to understand, ogre," Koenma told him. "It's a plan of great subtlety, and subtlety never was your strong point."

He waited for George to fully absorb the insult and to finish feeling sorry for himself before continuing.

"I suspect there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye," he explained. "And since neither have told me the truth when under oath, I will just have to observe their behaviour together tonight to understand what truly is happening. And besides, I can't let Hiei be put to death for a crime he did not commit."

"Right, Botan is the real criminal," George agreed.

"Yes, sadly she is," Koenma replied. "But she's also a good girl who seems to have made a genuine mistake. I can forgive her for her crime, but I doubt my father would see it the same way. If I try to plead Hiei's innocence, I would need to identify the real murderer, and that means damning Botan, which I don't want to do."

"So what are you going to do Sir?"

"I'm going to watch."

"You're going to let them both escape so that neither will be punished for Tarukane's death?"

Koenma met George's eyes, the look of genuine concern and belief he found there making him sigh.

"No ogre," Koenma said. "I'm not going to let either of them go. I just want to see what they do and how they act when they think they have managed to escape. It's a little trick sometimes used to determine the true nature of a criminal mind."

"So you're going to let them go, but then you're not, but nobody will be charged with Tarukane's murder?"

Koenma sighed.

"Just… Don't talk about this to anyone," he said patiently.

"Right Sir," George replied. "Although I don't think I would anyway, because I don't really understand what you intend to do about the–"

"I said don't talk about this to anyone, ogre!" Koenma snapped. "Not even me!"

"Oh, right Sir!"

George nodded and adopted what he probably thought was a serious and intelligent look, but in Koenma's eyes it mostly just made him look like he was constipated.

"I miss Botan," Koenma said through a sigh.

**

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**

Hiei stared blankly at the guard standing in front of his cell door.

"What do you want?" he asked darkly.

"Well, we've been told you get executed tomorrow morning at dawn," the guard casually replied. "And since this is your last night alive, I'm obliged to ask you if you have any last requests."

"Last requests?" Hiei echoed.

"Yeah," the guard replied. "You know how you always let a dying man have one last thing before you kill him?"

Hiei slowly shook his head. He had never heard of such a concept. Usually he just killed. Offering to give something nice to his victim before slaughtering him was a new concept.

"Sure," he lied.

"So, do you want anything?" the guard asked. "Any particular food, a call home, some tasteful artistic photographs of naked women–"

"What?"

"A lot of prisoners on death row just want one last… Look at a naked body."

Hiei growled.

"Not that, idiot!" he sneered. "The thing you said before that!"

"Oh, food?" the guard asked. "Sure, we can cook you a nice meal."

"Not that either!" Hiei snapped. "The other thing!"

"The call home?"

The guard slowly eyed Hiei over.

"You got someone you want to talk to before you go?" he asked.

"Not exactly," Hiei replied. "I would like to write a letter to someone. Can you fix that for me?"

"You want to write a letter?" the guard echoed incredulously. "You understand that you can ask for anything, right?"

"I'm not just asking to write a letter," Hiei said. "I'm also asking you to deliver it for me."

"Are you sure you want to waste your last request on a letter?"

"Stop fucking about and bring me a pen and some paper!"

"Okay, fine, keep your shirt on!"

Hiei growled again and began pacing about as he waited for the guard to return. It was late evening already, and nightfall was approaching. The guard on duty would end his shift in just a few hours, and when he did, Botan would arrive to help Hiei escape his prison. She had a silly, romantic idea in her mind about the two of them running away together, bleeding love and making a new life for themselves in the human world, but there was something important he had to do first.

"Here you go," the guard said, pushing a handful of paper, an envelope and a pen through the bars.

Hiei snatched them from him, giving him a glare that he hoped indicated how stupid he thought the ogre was.

"I am going to write a short letter, and then I am going to put it in this envelope," he explained. "Then I will give the envelope to you, and you will give it to the person whose name I write on the envelope."

"I understand how a letter works," the guard flatly replied.

"You didn't let me finish, idiot," Hiei said. "You are not to deliver it to the person named until after I've gone, do you understand?"

"Sure," the guard agreed. "I wait until after you're dead, then I deliver your letter. That's about the easiest last request I've ever heard of."

"And as it is so easy, I expect you to get it right."

Hiei glared at the ogre a little longer to help drive home the severity of his point before moving to the wall by the bars of his cell and resting a page of paper against the bricks. Once the ogre had moved on, Hiei began to write his letter.

"You and I argued about it a lot," he muttered aloud as he wrote. "But the fact is, we were both wrong."

**

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**

**Next Chapter:** Botan enacts her plan to free Hiei and it's a night of surprises all round. It's also the end of this fic. **Chapter 19: They Don't Know**

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**A/N:** I like that lots of people think this will end with Hiei and Botan going to limbo together. A nice, tidy, sensible ending.


	19. They Don't Know

**A/N:** I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

**Final chapter. YAY!**

**Type 1 fic warning**

**Recap: **Botan and Hiei plotted to run away together, Koenma overheard the whole thing.

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**Chapter 19: They Don't Know**

_But something happened  
For the very first time with you  
My heart melted to the ground  
Found something true  
And everyone's looking 'round  
Thinking I'm going crazy  
But I don't care what they say  
I'm in love with you  
They try to pull me away  
But they don't know the truth  
My heart's crippled by the vein  
That I keep on closing  
You cut me open and I  
Keep bleeding love  
(Bleeding Love, Leona Lewis)_

Botan had been staring at her reflection for so long that when she closed her eyes she could see an imprint of her own face on the inside of her eyelids. She had bathed and dressed in her traditional pink kimono, taming and tying her hair up in a high ponytail that was scraped perhaps a little tighter than usual, mainly because she was nervous and unable to fully control her movements. It was late and almost time for her to leave her quarters and return to the prison wing one last time to wait for the guard on duty to finish his shift so that she could sneak in and release Hiei. She was terrified that she would be caught or that her plan would somehow go wrong: but strangely not because of what it would mean for her, but rather what it would mean for Hiei, as he faced certain death if she could not get him out of spirit world.

She wished that he had not removed the Mejiru Shiiru label he had attached to her back in demon world.

She was however glad that he had returned the Concentration Ring, as she had been able to return it to Koenma, which had cheered him and helped ease the tension that had been building between them. In the many years that Botan had worked for Koenma there had never been any tension between them, but since her return from the city of ghosts and apparitions, things had been terrible, and she knew that it was mostly because she was hiding secrets from him. Hiding secrets was a very dangerous thing to do, and usually Botan did not like keeping secrets, but this was one she would always have to keep. And the rewards would be worth it, she told herself, because she was going to be with Hiei.

Botan saw her reflection smile. She had never thought that she would find love, and it had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. It had also happened with a demon who had claimed not to believe in love, but that had not stopped him from gaining an appreciation for it. She was looking forward to spending more time with Hiei and him opening up more to her and better understanding the real meaning of love – the true meaning of love – rather than the warped idea he had about it in his head. Before being trapped in the city of ghosts and apparitions with Hiei, Botan had never wanted anything for herself, but she was now consumed by her desire to have Hiei for herself.

She tugged at her clothing one last time before finally turning away from the mirror. The clock on her bedroom wall told her it was almost half past one in the morning – the prison guard on the twilight shift finished at around ten minutes before two – and she had planned to leave her room at exactly half past one in order to get to the prison wing in time to carry out her plan. She decided instead to leave immediately and use the extra few minutes to double-check that Koenma was still in his private quarters (and therefore most likely still asleep). Whilst she did not expect Koenma to follow her even if he was awake and in his office, she was aware that, in general, the residents of spirit world slowed down and slacked off their duties slightly when they knew for sure that Koenma was asleep and not watching over them, which would make it easier for her to get to the prison wing without being seen going there.

Botan left her room and walking swiftly and silently through the halls of residence and towards Koenma's office. It was a journey she had made so many times, she thought she could probably have done it with her eyes closed; but, she realised, this would probably be the last time she did ever make that journey. She felt a little sad, but her excitement about starting a new life for herself was too great to be overcome by any minor regrets she had. She soon reached her destination and found her boss's office to be in darkness, and, peering in through the doorway and looking about, she could not see any signs of life within the room, and, as there were no guards, administration ogres with unreasonable piles of paperwork or ferry girls in the immediate vicinity of the office door, Botan turned around and started towards the main atrium and the prison wing beyond it.

She had rarely wandered around the temple at night, as usually she was either sleeping or working, and it was always eerie to see the halls so devoid of life. The silence around her seemed almost too much, and she found herself straining to listen for noise and then worrying that if she did encounter someone or hear something, she would probably be startled after enduring such solitude and silence for so long. Her nerves were already frayed to the point that her extremities were numb and every time she turned a corner she felt a little light-headed, and so she tried to distract herself by focusing on looking at ease and walking casually, so that if she did encounter someone, they would not be suspicious of her.

As it was, Botan made it to the prison wing without incident, seeing barely more than a dozen ogres and only one ferry girl, none of whom had noticed her as they moved about their own business. At the prison wing she slowed down and crept up to the main door, spying through it to see the guard on duty doing a few final checks on some of the prisoners in the main prison hall before ending his shift. Botan slipped into an alcove and concealed herself in the shadows, where she waited until the ogre had exited the prison wing and walked off. Once she was sure that he was out of sight and out of earshot she dashed over to the main entrance and quickly typed in the over-ride code to the door lock.

Inside the main prison, Botan tried to tip-toe by the cells unnoticed, but, unfortunately for her, several of the inmates were still awake. They were all demons, they were all relatively weak and they were all being held for minor offences, but although she was in no real danger from them attacking her, when they began calling out to her she did worry that they might be heard and draw attention to her unauthorised presence there.

"Hey, hey, check it out! Here comes the entertainment!"

Botan gasped and glared angrily at the horned demon who was leering at her through the bars of his cell, and promptly realised her mistake when he grinned at her response.

"Careful, it's one of those tightly-wound, virgin ferry girls!" another demon called over.

"Hey!" Botan protested.

"They're not real though, right?" a third demon asked.

"I dunno, she looks real enough to me," the first demon said, eying Botan over in a way that made her shudder in disgust and start to walk faster. "If I can see her and I can feel her, isn't that real enough?"

Botan screamed and broke into a run as the demon in question reached a hand out of his cell, his arm extending and flexing around the bars to follow after her. The other inmates howled with laughter and cheered him on, and a glance over her shoulder showed Botan why: the demon's arm could extend faster than she could run.

"Leave me alone!" she shouted, summoning her oar and quickly dodging out of his reach.

She ducked and weaved her way along the long corridor and down the steps at the end of it, taking herself to the door to death row. There she leapt off her oar and used it to smack away the demon's hand which had, miraculously, managed to reach her there. She quickly typed in the over-ride code and leapt into the darker, smaller wing of the prison, hurriedly opening the lock on Hiei's cell door and sliding the door aside. Hiei emerged from the darkness as the demon's hand reappeared near Botan, and in a move too fast for Botan's eyes, Hiei grabbed at the hand and closed his fist around it, tearing the hand from the demon's arm.

Botan gulped as she heard a distant scream, her eyes watching the bloody stump of an arm retracting back out of sight. Hiei casually flung aside the hand he had taken and then wiped his hands on his coat.

"Where are my possessions?" he asked.

Botan numbly pointed back in the direction she had come from and Hiei nodded his head at her oar. She awkwardly lowered it and sat onto it, waiting until she felt Hiei climb on behind her before taking off again. As they flew back through the main prison the nature of the jeers from the other prisoners changed from perverse suggestions to demands for freedom, and Botan had to fight to block them out. She took Hiei to the main entrance where they recovered his sword and a small amount of demon world currency that had been taken from him.

"Relax," Hiei said as he stuffed the money into a pocket of his coat.

"I can't, I'm scared," Botan whispered back.

"It's too late for that," he replied, fixing his sword to the back of his pants and then concealing it beneath his coat.

"Hold my hand," she said.

Hiei hesitated, his eyes on Botan's outstretched hand, and for a moment she thought that he might refuse.

"We have to move quickly," he reminded her before finally taking her hand in his.

She smiled and lingered for a few seconds in the comforting feeling of the warmth of his touch. She knitted her fingers through his and silently marvelled at the way their hands fit together so perfectly before nodding and sitting onto her oar again. Keeping hold of her hand, Hiei climbed onto the blade of the oar, and together they took off out of the prison wing and back into the main atrium.

**

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**

Koenma, George and the ogre due to start the next shift of prison guard duty all sat around a television screen. The picture was frequently changing as George switched between security cameras to allow them to follow Botan's progress through the temple. So far she had, without hesitation or apparent doubt, carried out her plan to release Hiei from prison and escape with him to the living world.

"Lord Koenma."

Koenma looked over the top of the television to see the twilight shift guard entering his office.

"Come in, sit down," Koenma greeted him.

The guard nodded and moved over to join them. He sat down and for a little while longer, all four watched Botan swooping through the temple on her oar, with Hiei as her passenger.

"Sir, Hiei had a last request," the newly arrived guard eventually said.

"I noticed," Koenma dryly replied. "He chose to take his freedom and one of my ferry girls."

"No Sir, he asked if I would deliver this for him after he had gone."

Koenma turned to the ogre to see that he was holding out a sealed envelope towards him. Koenma took it, looking down at it for a long time before shaking his head.

"This doesn't make any sense," he concluded, turning to the guard in the hope of hearing an explanation.

"I guess not," the ogre agreed with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Why would he want you to deliver this to…?" Koenma began. "When did he give you this? Before or after he planned his escape with Botan?"

"After, Sir."

"That makes even less sense."

"I know."

Koenma looked down at the envelope again. It seemed like every time he thought he understood what Hiei was thinking, something else happened to leave him even more confused than before.

**

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**

Botan pressed her back against the wall and side-stepped along the corridor. She glanced to one side to check that Hiei had taken her advice and remained back before peering her head around the corner. There was no-one in sight, but the annexe they were joining was a favourite recreational area for the officers of the Special Defence Force and their immediate subordinates, and it was too big a risk to take to just openly fly or run right through it. Unfortunately, passing through that part of the temple was the only way to access the permanent portal to the living world, and so Botan and Hiei had been forced to adopt stealth tactics to continue their so far surprisingly successful and undetected escape. Luckily Hiei was an expert at blending into the shadows and Botan herself was quite skilled at hiding and sneaking around unnoticed – which was another reason why Koenma had asked her to be Yusuke's assistant when he had become the new spirit detective.

The portal Botan was trying to get to was one of the two reasons why the annexe had been constructed and why it was typically frequented by soldiers, as it literally was a permanent and free passage to the living world. She had used it many times in the past, though more commonly she used the main portal to the living world over the temple gates. That portal had been an optional route for her and Hiei to take out of spirit world, but Botan had avoided it on the basis that ferry girls worked round the clock, and there would be others passing through it both directions ferrying souls, regardless of the hour, whereas the one she was approaching now was typically only visited by one or two soldiers in the middle of the night, and only then to ensure that it was not being misused.

Botan slid around the corner and began creeping along the shorter corridor to the refectory beyond it. It was not the only way to the portal, but it was the easiest way to stay hidden. She stopped again at the open doorway leading into the large dining hall and cautiously looked about herself as she leaned over the threshold. She could feel Hiei was close behind her – literally, because of the warmth radiating off of him – and although she was frightened, she was reassured by his presence.

"Okay, we're clear," she whispered, edging into the room and beckoning for Hiei to follow her.

The lights mounted in the high ceiling were all switched off, and the only light in the fifty table dining hall was coming from a row of self-serve drinks and snacks dispensers by the kitchens at one side of the room. The soft glow of the machines was casting long, blurry shadows over the dining area, and, as she caught sight of Hiei's ragged shadow cast onto the far wall, the peak of his pointed hair almost reaching the ceiling, Botan yelped softly in alarm and stumbled into a chair, which squeaked against the hard floor. She stopped short and grabbed at the chair as she tried to calm herself. Under any other circumstances she would have laughed off her own silliness, but as she was trying to flee spirit world with a prisoner and they were passing through a part of the temple most commonly littered with spirit world's most powerful warriors, her predicament was anything but funny.

"What happened?" Hiei hissed, stopping on the other side of the chair she had pushed out of place.

"I thought I saw something," she vaguely replied. "But it was just… A trick of the light."

She forced a smiled and righted the chair, but as she completed her task and met Hiei's eyes again she found him no longer looking directly at her, and there was something decidedly unsettling in his expression. She felt a flutter of panic again, remembering that there were far more terrifying things to concern herself with than a flying shadow.

"Get down," Hiei whispered sharply.

"What?"

Botan gasped in shock as Hiei grabbed her into his arms and yanked her down behind the nearby table. He was crouching in a controlled position, but as he had pulled her down suddenly and sharply, her legs had literally splayed out beneath her, and the only thing holding the upper half of her body off the ground was Hiei's arms, which were around her waist a little awkwardly. She gave him a questioning look but the sight of a grave expression on his face and a small shake of his head made her stop. He had obviously sensed something, and she trusted him: but she did worry about who or what it was and how safe their hiding place was. They remained still for some time before Botan started to hear what Hiei had presumably seen, heard or sensed much sooner: a set of footsteps moving quietly through the tables.

"It's one of those SDF soldiers, we won't get past her unnoticed."

Botan stiffened, her panic-stricken brain taking several seconds to calm down and realise that the voice she had just heard had not spoken out loud, and that it was Hiei talking to her telepathically through his jagan eye.

"We need a plan to get her out of the way. You know this area, what can we do?"

Botan thought for a moment before coming to a difficult and reluctant decision.

"I will go out there and distract her," she thought, meeting Hiei's eyes as the words crossed her mind. "I'll get her out of this room and then you can pass through the portal. It's accessed from the door at the back right-hand corner of the room, which leads to an indoor garden. The portal takes you to a hill a mile outside of the city of Nagasaki. If you climb to the top of the hill, there is an old tower built there. Wait there for me, I will join you as soon as I can."

"I understand."

Botan started to stand but Hiei held onto her a moment longer. She paused, searching his eyes for a reason. He slid one arm from around her and brought his hand to her face, lightly dragging the backs of his fingers down her cheek. She smiled and caught his hand in hers.

"I love you, Hiei," she whispered softly.

He nodded and released her completely. She scurried along the length of the table and leaned past its end to check the location of the soldier, shortly spotting her walking towards the back of the room two rows of tables over. Botan quietly stood up and ran along a few more tables before deliberately kicking a chair to get the soldier's attention.

"Halt! Who goes there?" she shouted, spinning around and shining a light at Botan.

Botan squinted and lifted up one long kimono sleeve to shield her eyes.

"I'm sorry, it's only me, Botan!" she called back.

"Botan?" the soldier asked.

"I'm a ferry girl," Botan explained, slowly moving towards the middle of the room and strategically altering the angle between herself and the officer to steer her away from Hiei.

"I don't usually see ferry girls down here," the soldier called back to her. "Especially not at two in the morning. Can I help you?"

"Oh, no thank you!" Botan said, edging towards the source of the light. "It's just a silly thing, you see. I've become rather fond of the sweet fruit juices in that drinks dispenser, and I often come here to sample them. I just finished work and it's been such a tiring day, I just wanted to get myself a drink. I'm very sorry if I interrupted you."

Botan quietly sighed in relief as the soldier finally lowered the light and she was able to lower her arm. When she blinked, she could still see the glare of the light, but she could see that the soldier who had been wielding it looked more disgruntled than angered, and so she let herself relax.

"This area is really only meant for the warriors of spirit world," the soldier said.

Botan stopped moving and pretended to look confused.

"Don't you ferry girls have tea rooms in your own part of the temple?" the soldier asked, starting towards her.

"Yes, of course, but I do so like the drinks you have here," Botan replied, blatantly continuing her lie.

The soldier sighed and began to march towards Botan.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," she said sternly. "You shouldn't be in here. I just received word a prisoner has escaped, it's too dangerous for a defenceless little girl like you to be out on her own."

Botan felt a little insulted as the officer grabbed her wrist and began dragging her out of the refectory as though she was a child who had been caught playing truant from school. As they left the room, Botan looked back over her shoulder, and she saw a faint blur of movement by the point where Hiei had been hiding. She smiled in relief and then turned back to concentrate on where she was being taken and planning how she would get back to the portal.

"I'll take you to one of the ogres on duty," the soldier continued as they walked down the corridor away from the dining hall. "And in future, you shouldn't leave your own designated sector without a bodyguard. There are portals near here, you could have encountered anything coming this way on your own. And what would you have done? You have no offensive or defensive capabilities whatsoever. A cute smile maybe helps you charm lost souls toots, but it won't do you much good in the face of a demon."

Botan pouted indignantly and glared at the back of the soldier's head.

"I'm a very resourceful girl, I'll have you know!" she said moodily.

"Yes, you're a girl, and that's the biggest problem," the soldier said through a sigh. "This is a place for men and women. The girls' playroom is back up in the admin block."

"…You're very harsh," Botan muttered.

"I'm not harsh, you're just over-sensitive. And that's why I'm in this uniform and you're in that pink disaster."

Botan gasped again and yanked her arm from the soldier's hold.

"Now you're just being mean!" she said.

They both stopped and faced each other, each staring at the other intensely. Eventually the soldier sighed and flipped open a communication mirror.

"Captain, I've got a stray ferry girl here down by the mess hall," she said.

"Get her away from there," a voice answered her. "I've just received word from Koenma that there is a rogue ferry girl on the loose. She's with the escaped prisoner and she's trying to help him. We have to catch them at any cost."

The captain of the Special Defence Force may have said more, but Botan never heard it, as she had already snuck away from the soldier and started running back to the refectory. She made it halfway through the large hall before she heard the soldier yelling after her, and she then quickly summoned her oar to speed her escape.

She shot through the already open door in the back corner of the room and pointed herself at the portal to the living world, speeding through it without hesitation.

**

* * *

**

Koenma was impressed when Ayame lowered him to the exact spot Botan was lying on. He had not seen her from the sky, mostly because she was lying amongst long grass by the base of the ruins of an old tower on the hillside, but Ayame had apparently managed to spot her. They silently landed close to Botan and Ayame politely eased the blade of her oar down to the ground to allow Koenma to hop off of it.

"Thank you Ayame," he said as he disembarked her oar. "Would you be so kind as to give us a moment alone now?"

"Certainly Milord," she replied.

Koenma watched her smoothly lift up into the sky again, waiting until she was more than out of earshot before turning to the splayed tangle of pink and blue at his feet.

"Botan?" he said gently.

"Just kill me," she replied.

Her face was almost completely hidden beneath her hair, which had mostly come loose from its ties, and one of her hands was partially covering her eyes and nose, making her voice sound muffled and foreign.

"Botan, I've come to take you home," Koenma said. "I don't expect you to be quite yourself or quite ready to return to duty just yet, but I think, with a little time, you'll come to understand and accept what has happened and then you can move on."

Botan slowly sat up, pushing her hair back to reveal that, as he had suspected, her face was stained with tears, her eyes were red and her mouth turned downwards in misery.

"I don't understand…" she said quietly.

"I know, Botan," he answered her. "I know about everything."

Her head whipped around and she fixed him with a fearful stare.

"I know that you freed Hiei," he explained.

"Oh…" she said faintly.

"And I know now that Hiei did not kill Tarukane," he added.

"…Oh…."

"And I know that you were planning to run away with Hiei and live with him here in the living world."

"Yes… But he didn't come…"

Botan looked up at the sky as though she expected to see Hiei there.

"No, he didn't," Koenma agreed. "You took Hiei to the gateway. He had the choice of taking the portal to here, the living world, or taking the other portal to the border of the spirit world owned sector of demon world, a mere stone's throw away from his former home. Did you honestly think that he would choose to go back to the human world when he had the chance to go back to his beloved demon world home?"

Botan sobbed and dropped her face into her hands.

"Botan, I know this is difficult for you, but I need to get you back to spirit world, and you need to make me a promise," Koenma continued.

Botan did not lift her head, but he could tell by her altered breathing that she was attempting to control herself, which at least indicated that she was listening to him.

"I need you to promise that, once we get back to spirit world, you will never talk about this again," he said. "You can't ever talk about Tarukane's death, your time in the city of ghosts and apparitions and you most definitely can't ever talk about your feelings for Hiei or the fact that you broke him out of prison and tried to run away with him."

Her sobs eased off slightly.

"It's important that you agree to this, Botan," Koenma insisted. "If you ever admit to freeing Hiei, killing Tarukane or falling in love with a demon, you will be sentenced to a fate worse than death. Do you understand?"

"I'm already dead anyway," she muttered into her hands.

"That's not true," he replied. "You were never alive to die."

"Exactly."

She sighed and her hands slid from her face. She had that hollow look in her eyes again, but as she looked at Koenma – who was on eye level with her as she was still on her knees – she forced a smile.

"I was never alive to feel," she said quietly.

Koenma was unsure how to interpret her response. She was smiling almost naturally, but her pupils were unfocused and blank, and the overall effect was worse than simply seeing her looking miserable. He was so accustomed to seeing her eyes sparkling with cheer and to hearing her laughing and having fun that it seemed doubly bad to see her looking so vacant and grief-stricken.

"This is very important," he said slowly, hoping to impress the magnitude of the situation upon her. "If you mention any of this to anyone, you will condemn yourself and Hiei. Your silence allows both of you to be free and to live your lives as you were meant to and in the worlds you each belong in. Do you understand?"

A flicker of life returned to Botan's eyes but her smile vanished.

"Free and where we belong?" she asked quietly.

"That's right, yes," Koenma agreed.

He felt slightly relieved that she was at least focusing on the most important point.

"I see…" she said, nodding slightly.

"Good," he said. "Now let's go back home."

"Home?"

Koenma frowned slightly but Botan then forced a smile and stood up.

"Spirit world, of course," she said.

She looked almost cheerful, but her voice sounded awkward and strained.

"Try to remember how the old saying goes," he advised her. ""Time is the greatest healer, and"…"

Koenma looked down at his feet for a moment as he realised his mistake, inwardly cursing himself for almost having finished what would have been the worst thing he could have said at such a moment.

"Let's go back to spirit world, Sir," Botan said quietly.

She summoned her oar and climbed onto it and Koenma clambered on behind her. She did not look directly at him again and he decided not to bother her unless she specifically spoke to him first. As long as she did not say something irrational that endangered her own existence, as long as she understood and grieved in private, everything would be alright, everything would return to normal. He had no desire to see her suffer, but it was far better that she mourned over a lover abandoning her than she was sent to limbo or simply erased from existence.

And he was almost certain that Hiei's original claims of having used her and misled her with promises of romance during their time together in the city of ghosts and apparitions were true.

**

* * *

**

Koenma watched George collect his breakfast dishes onto a tray. Neither of them had slept the night before, as they had stayed up because of Botan and Hiei's escape and then after it had all ended, with Hiei fleeing to demon world and Botan returning to spirit world, neither of them had been able to sleep.

"Do you need me to deliver that letter, Sir?" George asked, pointing at the envelope on Koenma's desk.

Koenma turned his head to look at it, feeling a little surprised as he had forgotten about its presence there during the chaos of the previous night.

"No, I don't think that'll be necessary," he said, picking up the envelope.

"I suppose it wouldn't be right to deliver it," George agreed. "Hiei said to deliver it after he was gone, and he's still alive."

Koenma frowned slightly. The guard who had collected the envelope had specifically said that Hiei had used the words "after I've gone" as opposed to "after I've died", and so, he supposed, Hiei really had been plotting against Botan all along. He had used her in demon world to satisfy his own carnal desires and then he had used her in spirit world to obtain his freedom.

He wondered what manner of vile diatribe the fire demon had written in what was effectively his farewell letter to Botan.

"Sir!" George yelped as Koenma began ripping open the envelope. "It's improper to open someone else's mail!"

Koenma ignored him completely, removing the letter from the torn remains of the envelope and unfolding it to find that it was quite short and written on just one page. He skimmed through it and felt that he must have missed something. He scanned over it and felt that he had misunderstood something. He read it and started to feel confused. He studied it and realised he may have been wrong about Hiei and what had gone on between him and Botan.

"What does it say, Sir?" George asked.

"I thought you said that reading someone else's mail was improper, ogre," Koenma replied, giving him a flat look.

"No Sir, I said opening someone else's mail was improper," George replied.

"You protested me opening it, but you're fine with me actually reading it?" Koenma asked.

"I don't think there's a rule about actually reading it, just about opening it."

"…Right. Well, since you're so clued up on rules and manners ogre, maybe you can you can tell me what this means. "You and I argued about it a lot, but the fact is, we were both wrong. The demon world definition is wrong, but so is the spirit world definition. In a twist of irony, we demons are wrong, you spirits are wrong, and the miserable humans are the only ones who got it right. It's not completely the demon world way nor the spirit world way, it's a blend and balance of both. It needs both to truly be, and when both are present, it becomes something bigger than just the sum of the two: it becomes something worthy of great sacrifice.

"I understand that now, and perhaps you do too. The life I've had is enough to turn any soul bad, and I've never denied or fought that fate. My life, my ambitions and my future concern only me, and me alone. There is a road I must travel, and though the journey leaves me weary, I must continue it, and it must be travelled alone. I have a purpose in demon world and you have a purpose in spirit world. I will continue my journey and you will continue yours, and although we move in different directions, know that we will never be apart, we just won't be together.

"The rulers of spirit world have decreed a terrible fate for me in the afterlife, but I don't think that it will ever come to pass because I believe in you and all that you are, and I think that faith will one day redeem my soul, despite my many wrongs.""

Koenma looked up from the note, watching George expectantly.

"I don't know what that means, Lord Koenma," the ogre replied honestly. "Maybe only Botan would know. Maybe Hiei deliberately wrote it so that only she would understand it."

"Yes, that's what I was afraid of," Koenma sighed, folding the letter over. "But it seems to suggest that Hiei did care about her on some level. And it also does confirm that he never intended to run away with her and that he always intended to return to demon world without her."

"Sir, don't you think that Botan should be allowed to read that letter?" George asked.

"No George," Koenma said, stuffing the letter back into the remains of the envelope. "Right now Botan believes that Hiei betrayed and abandoned her, and as long as she believes that, she will grow to resent him, and resenting him will cause her less pain than eternal longing for him would. And as she comes to resent him, he will come to feel that she hates him, and he will never bother her again. If he ever returned to the living world or spirit world, he would be arrested and put to death unless Botan was convicted in his place, and if that happened, she would be sentenced even more severely than Hiei would. This way they can both live and they can both move on with their lives."

"It seems a little unfair, Sir," George said.

"Perhaps it is," Koenma agreed, dropping the letter into a drawer in his desk and locking it in. "But it's better this way for both of them. It's just better and easier if they don't know."

**THE END**

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**A/N:** As usual, thanks to everyone who reviewed, and special thanks to:

dragonwingedangel  
ReaperDemon  
TopazDragon  
HereAfter

Especially you, dragonwingedangel, because the threat of your scaly-winged angelic self mauling my writer's block gave me nightmares for three days straight (my bedroom has a HUGE Velux window, I live by the sea, seagulls stamp over the glass right above my head while I sleep – you get the idea), and nightmares spawn new fic ideas, so I've added another 7 Yu Yu Hakusho fanfics to my list of ideas to be written. Seriously.

Please review. Extra HAPPY to the first person who correctly identifies the (deliberate) little inconsistency in chapter 18 that was (deliberately) not resolved by the end of the fic.

Oh, oh, oh! And speaking of HAPPY, I fixed the small thumbnail image issue with my YuYu manga re-write. The pages are now huge and in high-def. So watch out for that, it's totally NSFW. Just like it was meant to be, LOL!

Review. Please?


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